waiting for makhno

The Past and Present Society

Waiting for Makhno: Legitimacy and Context in a Russian Peasant WarAuthor(s): Erik-C. LandisSource: Past & Present, No. 183 (May, 2004), pp. 199-236Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600864 .Accessed: 19/02/2015 11:35

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WAITING FOR MAKHNO: LEGITIMACY AND CONTEXT IN A RUSSIAN

PEASANT WAR At the end of the Russian civil war, when the threat of counter- revolution led by the former Tsarist officers had effectively ended, and when the Red Army was quickly retreating from an over-ambitious drive towards Warsaw, the Soviet regime was confronted by a wave of rural insurgencies. These insurgencies occurred in the richest grain-growing regions and were far more serious than the resistance the state had encountered in its forays into the countryside during the previous years of the civil war conflict.1 The most spectacular of these insurgencies was also the one nearest to the seat of Soviet authority. In the province of Tambov, a rebellion organized by a group of conspirators led by the veteran revolutionary Aleksandr Antonov was successful in bringing virtually the entire territory of the province to a standstill. The Soviet authorities of the province were effectively confined to the administrative centres, from which they were powerless to carry out their primary task of procuring grain for distribution to the army and to the cities in the heart of Soviet Russia.2

1'On rural resistance throughout the civil war period, see Vladimir Brovkin, Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War: Political Parties and Social Movements in Russia, 1918-1922 (Princeton, 1994); Mikhail S. Frenkin, Tragediia krest'ianskikh vosstanii v Rossii, 1918-1921 gg. [The Tragedy of Peasant Rebellions in Russia, 1918-1921] (Jerusalem, 1987); T. V. Osipova, 'Krest'ianstvo v grazhdanskoi voine: bor'ba na dva fronta' [The Peasantry in the Civil War: A Struggle on Two Fronts], in Iu. N. Afanas'ev (ed.), Sud'by rossiiskogo krest'ianstva [The Fortunes of the Russian Peasantry] (Moscow, 1996).

2 On the rebellion in Tambov, see Seth Singleton, 'The Tambov Peasants' Revolt', Slavic Rev., xxv (1966); Oliver H. Radkey, The Unknown Civil War in Soviet Russia (Palo Alto, 1976); I. P. Donkov, Antonovshchina: zamysly i deistvi- tel'nost' [The Antonov Affair: Plots and Reality] (Moscow, 1977); Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii v 1919-1921 gg., 'Antonovshchina': dokumenty i materialy [Peasant Rebellion in Tambov Province, 1919-1921. 'The Antonov Affair': Documents and Materials], ed. V. Danilov and T. Shanin (Tambov, 1994); N. V. Fatueva, Protivostoianie: krizis vlasti, tragediia naroda: iz istorii krest'ianskikh volnenii i vosstanii v Tambovskoi gubernii v 1918-1921 godakh [Resistance: Crisis of Power, Tragedy of a People: From the History of Peasant Uprisings and Rebellions in Tambov Province, 1918-1921] (Riazan', 1996); Delano DuGarm, 'Peasant Wars in Tambov Province', in Vladimir N. Brovkin (ed.), The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and Civil Wars (New Haven and London, 1997).

? The Past and Present Society, Oxford, 2004


200 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 183

The rebellion lasted, roughly, from August 1920 until mid 1921. At its height, it could boast a capably organized army composed of some sixteen regiments. Under arms, the rebel, or 'Partisan', army was able to mobilize upwards of twenty thousand men, nearly all of them locals from the surrounding countryside. The effort was supported by a network of peasant unions, numbering in the hundreds, which could be found in nearly all but the smallest villages in the insurgent countryside.3 These unions worked hand in hand with the army, arranging provi- sions for the rebels and their horses, organizing local communities to provide intelligence on Red Army troop movements, carrying out various acts of sabotage on rail lines and bridges, and generally managing affairs in the villages during the course of the insurgency.

If the rebellion in Tambov province was exceptional in organizational terms, it was no less remarkable in the political programme and message it purportedly represented. No other rural rebellion in the Russian civil war, with the possible exception of that led by Nestor Makhno in south-eastern Ukraine, gave greater attention to communicating its ideas and goals, whether to the village population of the insurgent countryside or to its adversaries in the Red Army and the Communist Party. In its political programme, distributed throughout the countryside and read during the meetings of the village unions, or STKs, the two most salient points were, first, the imperative of removing the Communist Party from power, and second, the need to base state authority upon the popularly elected Constituent Assembly.4 Hatred of the Communist Party and the Soviet regime was a great factor in the mobilization of support for the insurgency, and it provided a central theme in rebel propaganda, which courted the support of local peasants and Red Army soldiers alike. But this anti-Soviet fervour was strongly linked during the height of the insurgency to the positive goal of achieving a democratic government that respected the rule of law. In this, the rebels were emphatic, and it animated their fierce polemic

3 S. A. Esikov and V. V. Kanishchev, '"Antonovskii NEP" (Organizatsiia i deia- tel'nost' "Soiuza trudovogo krest'ianstva" Tambovskoi gubernii, 1920-1921)' ['The Antonov NEP' (Organization and Work of the 'Union of the Toiling Peas- antry' of Tambov Province, 1920-1921)], Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 4 (1993).

4Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 79-80. The acronym 'STK' is derived from 'union of the toiling peasantry' (soiuz trudovogo krest'ianstva).


The Province of Tambov in 1917 / Nizhnii Novgorod province * Centre of uezd (county) provnce

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Riazan' province

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Voronezh province



with Soviet authorities, who accused them of being mere bandits. The self-image of rebels, both leaders and rank-and-file, as partisans and as revolutionaries was repeatedly emphasized in all representations of the insurgency and participation in it. 'Our civil war' and 'our revolution' were brief slogans heard with great frequency during the height of the insurgency.5 Although perhaps confused in the technical sense, such words were indica- tive of the spirit that underpinned the insurgency. As a rebel appeal to Red Army soldiers read: 'Going into battle, the partisans know why they are risking their lives, and in that fact is to be found the strength ... of those whom the mindless Bolsheviks call "bandits"'.6

Not a single account of the insurgency, especially those in recent times, has seriously examined these goals and their meanings. In the last fifteen years, many new materials have emerged pertaining to the Antonov rebellion in Tambov, not least the documents produced by the insurgents themselves - their propaganda and agitational literature, the internal correspondence of the Partisan Army, and the papers of the peasant unions in the countryside. What has attracted the most attention has been information detailing the sheer scale of the insurgency and its suppression. Recent scholars have almost uniformly described the conflict in Tambov at the end of the civil war as a 'peasant war', pitting a modern army against a pre-modern peasantry.7 It was fought with thousands of troops on either side, and with an array of tactics and armaments, as well as with great cruelty and incalculable human cost. For these scholars, the ideas and ideals that emerged from the rebel camp are of secondary importance when placed alongside the overall tragedy of rural resistance to the Soviet regime. Others have similarly denied any place for the political claims of the movement.

5N. V. Fatueva, 'Oprosnye listy plennykh i perebezhchikov kak istochnik izucheniia "antonovshchiny"' [Interrogation Records of Prisoners and Rebel Deserters as a Source in the Study of the 'Antonov Affair'], in V. V. Konovalov (ed.), Istoriia Sovetskoi Rossii: novye idei i suzhdeniia [The History of Soviet Russia: New Ideas and Opinions] (Tiumen', 1991).

6 Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 101. 7 David Fel'dman, 'Krest'ianskaia voina' [Peasant War], Rodina, no. 10 (1989);

S. A. Esikov and L. G. Protasov, '"Antonovshchina": novye podkhody' ['The Antonov Affair': New Approaches], Voprosy istorii, nos. 6-7 (1992); P. A. Aptekar', 'Krest'ianskaia voina' [Peasant War], 2 pts, Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, nos. 1-2 (1993); V. V. Samoshkin, 'Posledniaia krest'ianskaia voina' [The Final Peasant War], Trud, 21 Oct. 1990.


WAITING FOR MAKHNO 203

For instance, Viktor Danilov and Teodor Shanin have written of the Antonov rebellion as part of a much larger peasant war, which begins, roughly, in 1902, and culminates in 1922. For them, the goals and ideals professed by rebels in 1920 and 1921 are not representative of the authentic motivations of participants. Instead, their actions are underpinned by meanings that are much more deeply embedded in the subsistence economy and in peasant culture, and are thus much more deeply meaning- ful.8 Still others have concluded that the actions of peasants such as those in Tambov were purely negative and reflective of an essential anarchism.9 In either variant, the ideological trappings of the insurgency have no resonance with peasant culture, and thus have no effect on motivations and actions.

I move from these introductory remarks to a brief story.

I 'KOTOVSKII'S RAID'

In many ways, the most famous episode from the history of the Antonov rebellion is one of the most fantastic. Many contem- poraries from the Cheka, Red Army, and Communist Party have recounted it in their memoirs;10 it has been given treat- ments in fiction, from authors as diverse as Nikolai Virta and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and has been adapted for the literary

8V. Danilov and T. Shanin, 'Nauchno-issledovatel'skii proekt "Krest'ianskaia revoliutsiia v Rossii, 1902-1922 gg." (Vmesto predisloviia)' [The Scientific-Research Project 'Peasant Revolution in Russia, 1902-1922' (In Lieu of an Introduction)], in Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 5-6. See also L. V. Danilova and V. P. Danilov, 'Krest'ianskaia mental'nost' i obshchina' [Peasant Mentality and Commune], in V. P. Danilov and L. V. Milov (eds.), Mentalitet i agrarnoe razvitie Rossii, XIX-XX vv. [Mentality and Agrarian Develop- ment in Russia, 19th-20th Centuries] (Moscow, 1996).

9 Brovkin, Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War, 416-19; Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, 1919-24 (London, 1994), 375; Orlando Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917-1921 (Oxford, 1989), 322-3.

10Important memoir materials are found in G. I. Kotovskii: dokumenty i materialy [G. I. Kotovskii: Documents and Materials], ed. L. M. Chizhova and Kh. M. Muratov (Kishinev, 1956). In addition, see P. A. Borisov, Chernym letom [In the Black Summer] (Moscow, 1965); A. S. Esaulenko, Revoliutsionnyi put' G. L Kotovskogo [The Revolutionary Path of G. I. Kotovskii] (Kishinev, 1956); A. Lobotskii, 'V skhvatke s antonovshchinoi' [In Battle with the Antonov Rebellion], in V. N. Logunova (ed.), Parol' - Muzhestvo: ocherki o tambovskikh chekistakh [Codeword - Courage: Sketches of Tambov Chekists] (Voronezh, 1986); D. M. Smimov, Zapiski chekista [The Notes of a Chekist], 2nd edn (Minsk, 1972).



tastes of Soviet children;"1 and it has featured in a popular Soviet- era feature film, which is still occasionally aired on Russian television.12 While all the versions of the story vary in unique and often idiosyncratic ways, the core of the episode can be synthesized as follows:

In midsummer 1921, a small detachment of Red Army cavalry, under the command of the famous Moldovan Brigade Commander Grigorii Kotovskii, set off into the forests not far from the provincial capital of Tambov in order to meet up with one of the larger remain- ing units of the Partisan Army. Pavel Ektov, a senior figure in the Partisan Army, had arranged a meeting for the Red Army cavalry unit with the rebel force. Some weeks before, Ektov had left Tambov province for Moscow on 'official' partisan business, in order to establish contact with individuals representing the PSR [Socialist Revolu- tionary Party] and other anti-Bolshevik partisans active in Soviet territory. 13 Instead of making these contacts, Ektov had been captured by Cheka agents upon arriving in the Soviet state capital. Subsequently handed over to military officials, Ektov agreed to help the Red Army with its efforts in fighting the insurgency in Tambov, in exchange for his life. At the time, in July 1921, the Red Army command in Tam- bov was most concerned with capturing or killing the most prominent rebel leaders. Ektov had expressed his opinion to Red Army officials that the most dangerous and capable of the rebel leaders still at large was Ivan Matiukhin, who commanded a group of between 200 and

11N. E. Virta, Odinochestvo: roman [Solitude: A Novel] (Moscow, 1936); Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 'Ego', Novyi mir, no. 5 (1995); A. N. Garri, Tambovskii reid [The Tambov Raid] (Moscow, 1938); A. N. Garri, Rasskazy o Kotovskom [Tales of Kotovskii] (Moscow, 1958); E. I. Morozov, Rasskazy o kotovtsakh [Tales of the Kotovskii Brigade] (Moscow, 1975). Nikolai Virta collaborated with the composer Tikhon Khrennikov to create an opera (V buriu [In the Storm], 1954) based upon his novel.

12 Kotovskii (1942), directed by Aleksandr Faintsimmer (Alma-Ata, TsOKS). The film was restored and re-released in 1979. The original score was composed by Sergei Prokofiev.

13The 'majority' faction of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party changed its name from Bolshevik to All-Russian Communist Party in March 1918. While this change in name was the source of some initial confusion outside the urban milieux where the party was strongly represented, by 1919-20 the labels 'Communist' and 'Bolshevik' had converged in popular understandings of the ruling party in the Soviet government. In many of the materials cited in this essay, the two are used interchangeably. I have used 'Bolshevik' in preference to 'Communist' for the sake of consistency, although quotations have not been altered.



450 armed rebels. Matiukhin's force was all that remained from what had previously been two whole regiments of the Partisan Army.

The plan devised by state and military authorities was for Ektov to accompany a force of Cossacks from the Don region, and to establish contact with Matiukhin's rebel force in the Tambov countryside. Claiming to be acting on the authority of the PSR and the leadership of the Partisan Army, Ektov was instructed to liaise between Matiukhin and the Don Cossack commander. The objective was the creation of a unified force of Tambov partisans and Cossack rebels, who were to form the central army of the unified anti-Bolshevik movement. The ultimate aim for this unified force was a march on Moscow, in order to depose the Bolshevik regime.

The real objective, of course, was for the liquidation of Matiukhin's partisan force. The Don Cossacks were, in reality, Kotovskii's Red Army cavalrymen, a mixed unit of Moldovans and Ukrainians. Kotovskii himself assumed the name of Ataman Frolov, evidently an actual character he had encountered during his service in Ukraine. After initial meetings between Matiukhin and Ektov, the latter even- tually succeeded in convincing the rebel commander of the authenticity and authority of these plans for a unification, and a meeting was arranged between the two forces and their commanders, in order to finalize the details of co-operation. The meeting between the commanders took place in a small peasant house in one of the average- sized villages in eastern Tambov county (uezd). The men who comprised the two military units, the Cossack/Red Army and the Partisan Army, set up camp at opposite ends of the village thoroughfare. Inside the peasant house, the respective groups of command staff did likewise, as Frolov/Kotovskii insisted that the rebel leaders seat themselves at the end of the single room that was furthest from the door.

The meeting was opened with a speech by one of Frolov/ Kotovskii's men, Pavel Borisov, in which he emphasized that the hopes of all Russia rested with the strength and success of the insurgents in Tambov province. Borisov read a message written by the members of the Central Committee of the PSR, in which they promised that another round of anti-Bolshevik resistance in central Russia would be supported by shipments of guns and ammunition, rebel recruits from Ukraine and Siberia, and even by foreign money and intervention by western armies. According to this message from the PSR, all hopes of success rested with the unification of the two most powerful armies in the anti-Bolshevik camp - Frolov's Cossacks and Matiukhin's peasants. With these words, according to the speaker's



memoirs, the customarily dour faces of the assembled partisan commanders brightened.

Matiukhin was informed that it was the wish of the PSR Central Committee that he assume leadership of the entire Partisan Army of the Tambov region, and that Ektov be his second in command. As for the unified anti-Bolshevik force, Frolov/Kotovskii stated that he would be willing to assume overall command. However, Kotovskii's hubristic offer immediately aroused controversy, since Matiukhin opposed the arrangement, insisting that his force of rebels was far superior in numbers and quality. At this point of high drama, Kotovskii evidently lost patience; he rose to his feet, drew his pistol, and shouted: 'Enough of this comedy! I am Kotovskii!' Pointing his pistol at Matiukhin, Kotovskii commanded, 'Shoot this scum (svoloch')!'

The sound of the crossfire inside the house signalled the Red Army men on the street into action, quickly completing the ambush of the partisan rebels, who had evidently been drunk after celebrating the intended unification. Inside the house, Kotovskii's pistol dramatically failed to fire several times before his comrades drew their own firearms. In the end, according to a report, Matiukhin received some thirteen bullet wounds, and died soon after. This was the end of the last significant rebel force in the Tambov countryside.14

At the time this episode took place, the Partisan Army, and the rebellion in Tambov, were all but finished. The Red Army presence in the region had increased dramatically since the beginning of 1921, reaching a force level of nearly one hundred thousand men under a scheme of occupation realized by the

14The actual death of Matiukhin following the exchange with Kotovskii is a point at which fact and fiction significantly blur. According to some accounts, Matiukhin managed to escape through a window, despite having been shot, scurry- ing off to the nearby barn, which was then set ablaze by Kotovskii's men. In yet another account, Matiukhin escaped entirely after receiving his wounds, dying alone several days later in the forest, after having amputated his own severely infected leg with garden shears. The most fantastical account of the episode has Matiukhin's brother, Mikhail, also a partisan leader, caring for his wounded sibling in the forest before - in a moment worthy of the films of Sam Peckinpah - murder- ing Ivan and delivering the decapitated head to the Tambov Cheka in the hope of receiving some leniency upon his surrender. The most plausible variant, though, is that a severely wounded Ivan Matiukhin was able to escape the ambush, but that quickly thereafter Cheka agents successfully hunted him down, killing Matiukhin as much out of mercy, as out of malice. See A. Lobotskii, 'Ikh znali nemnogie' [Only a Few Knew Them], Tambovskaia Pravda, 9-30 June 1968 (serialized in nos. 133-51).



overall commander, General Mikhail Tukhachevskii.'5 The dwin- dling rebel forces were tirelessly pursued by motorized and cavalry units, unable to find safe refuge in the villages of the Tambov countryside, amid a population either unable or unwilling to support them.16 Rumours abounded that the leader of the Partisan Army, Aleksandr Antonov, had gone into hiding, and had issued an order to all partisans to give up the struggle until a more opportune moment presented itself.17 Several rebel groups remained isolated in the forests of the province, and they had become, in various ways, the bandits that Soviet authorities had long before labelled them. They were short on guns and ammunition, food and fodder, shelter and safety.18

It is difficult to understand how, given such conditions, these desperate partisans in the forest of Tambov could so readily accept the mysterious appearance of a cavalry force of some two hundred 'Don Cossacks' in the heart of what was an occupied territory. It is even more puzzling that these same desperate partisans would readily accept words, not of escape to safety, but of imminent victory over the Soviet regime, to be spearheaded by the Tambov rebels and their mysterious visitors. In fact, the apparent absurdity of the scenario used by Kotovskii and his men to 'liquidate' the Matiukhin band is only understandable if

15 On Tukhachevskii's role, see his own articles of 'military science' (voennaia nauka): M. N. Tukhachevskii, 'Bor'ba s kontrrevoliutsionnymi vosstaniiami' [The Struggle with the Counter-Revolutionary Rebellions], 2 pts, Voina i revoliutsiia, nos. 7-8 (1926). See also Fel'dman, 'Krest'ianskaia voina'; German Smimov and Dmitrii Zenin, 'Tukhachevskii: legendy i real'nost" [Tukhachevskii: Legends and Reality], in G. Ivanov (ed.), Russkii rubezh: po stranitsam 'Literaturnoi Rossii' [Russian Border: From the Pages of 'Literaturnaia Rossiia'] (Moscow, 1991).

16 On the role of these reinforcements, see the biography of Ivan Fed'ko, the commander of the Red Army's motorized units in Tambov in 1921: I. L. Obertas, Komandir Fed'ko [Commander Fed'ko] (Moscow, 1973).

17 Authentic or not, an order to this effect was reproduced in the pages of the provincial state newpaper, Izvestiia Tambovskogo soveta rabochikh i krest'ianskikh deputatov, and was especially noted by Lenin himself, who was anxious for the rebellion in Tambov to reach a conclusion. See Grigorii Orlovskii, 'Kak dela v Tambovskoi gubernii?': sbornik ocherkov ['How Are Affairs in Tambov Province?': Collected Essays] (Voronezh, 1974), 70-3.

18In order to drive rebel groups out of their forest enclaves, the Red Army began experimenting with poisonous gas: see P. A. Aptekar', ' "Khimchistka" po-tambovski' [Dry-Cleaning, Tambov-Style], Rodina, no. 5 (1994); V. Mokarev, 'Kursantskii spor na bor'be s antonovshchinoi' [Cadet Training during the Struggle with the Antonov Rebellion], Voina i revoliutsiia: organ Tsentral'nogo soveta Osoaviakhima, no. 1 (1932), 79. On other episodes concerning the use of poisonous gas during the Russian civil war, see Simon Jones, "'The Right Medicine for the Bolshevist": British Air-Dropped Chemical Weapons in North Russia, 1919', Imperial War Museum Rev., no. 12 (1999).



one delves deeper into the important role politics and political culture played in the partisan movement in general, and in the Antonov rebellion, in particular. The remainder of this essay will be devoted to an in-depth explication of 'Kotovskii's raid'.

II REVOLUTIONARY LEGITIMACY

Since the beginning of 1919, Aleksandr Antonov and his band (druzhina) of followers had been engaged in a low-level campaign of violence and subversion against the Soviet state and its agents in the Tambov countryside. For over a year, they had been a menacing thorn in the side of the provincial administration, whose primary task in the Soviet Republic was the collection and shipment of foodstuffs for the use of the Red Army and the urban population of the cities to the north. Since 1914 and the beginning of the First World War, the issue of a centralized system of food supply had been exceptionally divisive in Russia. The beginning of civil war following Russia's withdrawal from the European conflict served only to intensify the controversy, as the Soviet government adopted increasingly coercive methods of extracting grain and other products from the village communities of the countryside.19 Antonov and his group carried out regular attacks on government food procurement squads, state collective farms, and any vulnerable state or Communist Party representatives who traversed the countryside. Their campaign was inconsistent, but menacing enough to disrupt food procurement efforts to a significant degree, particularly in Kirsanov, Antonov's native county.20

What had largely been absent from the efforts of Antonov and his followers was the courting of popular support among

19 Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 2002); Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War.

20 Following the emergency created by the encroachment of the civil war front lines in the autumn of 1919, martial law was lifted for the province of Tambov in January 1920, with the exception of Kirsanov county, where the state of siege remained in order to concentrate efforts on the elimination of Antonov and his druzhina: see Sovety Tambovskoi gubernii v gody grazhdanskoi voiny, 1918-1921 gg. [The Soviets of Tambov Province during the Civil War Years, 1918-1921], ed. N. A. Okatov (Voronezh, 1989), 227-9; Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoigubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 34-5; V. V. Samoshkin, 'Aleksandr Stepanovich Antonov', Voprosy istorii, no. 2 (1994), 70-1.



the general rural population. While testimonies from later participants in the 1920-1 rebellion would attest to members of the druzhina calling general assemblies on a number of occasions in 1919, these overtures were directed primarily at village men of mobilization age, urging them not to respect the state's calls to military service in the Red Army. Such overtures enjoyed a mixed reception, for while Tambov harboured a great number of military deserters, it also conformed to the seasonal patterns of desertion and re-enlistment that were so typical of the era.21 Antonov's own druzhina fluctuated similarly, never attaining a truly mass form, but always surviving with a considerable con- tingent.22 The group remained a limited enterprise throughout the first period of its existence, engaging in sporadic and some- times purely symbolic violence against the state and its representatives, and never embarking on a campaign to enlist the popular support of the rural population. To an extent, their inability or unwillingness to expand their campaign against the Soviet government in the province mirrored the dilemmas that confronted socialist opponents to the Bolsheviks who did not want to see their opposition to the Soviet regime benefit the more reactionary movement of the White generals.23 Such con- siderations no doubt informed the limited activities of radicals such as Antonov, and his activities remained rooted in a strong tradition of Russian political terrorism beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which the practice of terror frequently became detached from the larger political objectives of the revolutionary movement.24

The Soviet authorities, themselves keeping to a long tradition of state rulers, labelled Antonov and the druzhina 'bandits', and press reports, propaganda materials and official communications were consistently faithful to this characterization. After more

21 See Orlando Figes, 'The Red Army and Mass Mobilization during the Russian Civil War, 1918-1920', Past and Present, no. 129 (Nov. 1990).

22 The average size of the druzhina can be placed in the region of 150 men. During the course of its subversive activities, just over a hundred government agents were murdered by the druzhina.

23 On the dilemmas of left-wing opponents of the Bolsheviks in the civil war, see Jane Burbank, Intelligentsia and Revolution: Russian Views of Bolshevism, 1917-1922 (New York and Oxford, 1986).

24The history of Russian political terrorism was particularly connected with the PSR, whose antecedents were the primary practitioners of terrorism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See Anna Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill: Revolu- tionary Terrorism in Russia, 1894-1917 (Princeton, 1993).



than a year of low-level terrorist activities in the countryside of south-eastern Tambov province, Antonov (and evidently those close to him in the druzhina) took the intriguing decision to confront the Soviet authorities over this label. Penning a letter addressed to 'comrade communists' in the Kirsanov county militia, Antonov confronted the Kirsanov officials with a rebuttal, at times steeped with irony, to the merciless use of the characterization 'bandit':

It has been brought to our attention, comrade communists, that in wishing to slander me and my colleagues before the toiling peasantry and all of freethinking Russia, we have been labelled 'bandits', assigning to us participation in the robberies that have plagued the districts of Treskino, Kalugina, Kurdiukov, and other areas contiguous to this region. Such impudence is worthy of the disgraced bureaucracy of the old regime. I am more than convinced that if you are indeed true demo- crats, and that if you look deep into your souls that drip with the sacred blood of the toilers, you will say to yourselves: 'Motivated by weakness and spite, we sling unmerited accusations, slurring the names of citizens we know full well to be undeserving of such disgrace, indeed, are not even capable of such crimes'.25

For all the inflated rhetoric found in this excerpt, and throughout the letter, the implication that clearly emerges is the importance of the 'bandit' slur.26 Antonov, a man who traded heavily on his credentials as a revolutionary, whose personal history of defiance of the state comprised the majority of his adult life, considered himself and his supporters to be men of ideals - 'veritable revolutionaries' (istinnye revoliutsionery) - who were incapable of betraying their democratic principles. Although the letter was understandably never published by the Kirsanov authorities, they were moved to publish a detailed reply to Antonov's letter, no doubt with the intent of twisting the knife:

What sort of name, other than 'bandit', can one possibly give Antonov? Only 'bandit' fits, no others. No individual can call himself a true socialist and carry on with activities such as those that occupy this 'chief of a military brotherhood and his brothers in arms'. The workers and

25Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 41-2 (Feb. 1920). Antonov had previously served as chief of the Kirsanov county militia, following his release from prison in 1917. He mysteriously left his post in August 1918, re-emerging as the leader of the druzhina. Therefore, it is not surprising that the letter would be addressed to the Kirsanov militia offices, even if few in the militia would have been serving at the time Antonov was its chief.

26 Antonov's letter continued with the claim that he and his men had successfully liquidated what they considered to be true 'bandit' gangs operating in the region. Antonov even offered to assist the Soviet government in future anti-banditry efforts - an offer he must have known would be rejected out of hand.



peasants of Soviet Russia know all too well that only the Communists can be called the honourable fighters for the good of the proletariat, both at home and throughout the world, and they know, as well, that those who once called themselves socialists were quick to offer their services to the monarchists, to Kolchak and to Denikin, following the October Revolution.27

Antonov, to condense the spirit of the Kirsanov reply, was a bloodthirsty and violent adventurer, whose deeds only served to suffocate the revolution and its chances of triumph. The reply itself was an elaborate response, going on for several paragraphs, but what is most remarkable is that this brief polemic occurred at all. After months of clashes involving Antonov and the provincial government in Tambov, this brief exchange indicates that the political culture at the heart of the conflict was only beginning to take shape. The fact that the Kirsanov county officials, and the Communist Party in particular, engaged in this polemic reveals the extent to which the issue of such labels and characterizations remained important to the tentative sense of authority challenged by Antonov.28 His survival and steady rise in popularity served as a constant challenge to the legitimacy of the provincial Soviet government.

The February 1920 letter from Antonov indirectly served as an indication of a change in direction for the rural terrorist. Moving from low-level sabotage, and agitation among the village population promoting non-cooperation with the Soviet government, Antonov initiated firm steps towards the organization of an armed rebellion against the Soviet state. In large part, this was prompted by the abandonment of purely 'legal' work (within the professional unions and co-operatives) by the opposition Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR), which now permitted its member groups to undertake clandestine 'organizational' work among the population for an eventual challenge to the Soviet

27Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 42-3. This reply was composed by members of the county Cheka organization, and signed along with the executive of the county Communist Party committee. 28 The use of such language is far from unique to Russia. For a recent study focus- ing on the counter-insurgency campaigns in mid nineteenth-century Italy, see John Dickie, 'A Word at War: The Italian Army and Brigandage, 1860-1870', History Workshop, no. 33 (1992). Before the word 'terrorist' had achieved such prominence in official rhetoric, contemporary officials in the Russian Ministry of Defence faithfully continued to use the word 'bandit' to describe Chechen rebels. See Il'ia Maksakov, 'Politicheskie manevry na fone nezavershivsheisia voiny' [Political Manoeuvrings against the Background of an Unfinished War], Nezavisimaia gazeta, 14 Mar. 2000.



regime.29 But, while Antonov maintained strong ties with many individuals who continued to be members of the PSR, his own affiliation with the party was less clear, as it had been throughout his career as a revolutionary.30 His own involvement in mobilizing the local peasantry for a future insurgency was conducted in parallel with the work of the Tambov PSR organization's efforts, which were less confrontational in spirit.31 Antonov's work, conducted through the summer months of 1920, caused a high level of tension between the PSR in the province and Antonov's own circle of supporters. However, this developing tension did little to discourage either Antonov's continued efforts in this regard or his continued self-identification as an SR activist.32 During a series of

29 In a report to the September 1920 PSR Conference, the two delegates from Tambov note that this change in tactics was effected in February 1920. See Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 63-4; S. A. Esikov, 'Tambovskie esery v 1920 godu' [The Tambov SRs in 1920], in S. A. Esikov (ed.), Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn' rossiiskoi provintsii, XX vek [The Socio-Political Life of a Russian Province, 20th Century] (Tambov, 1993), 40-2.

30Recently published materials relating to the 1922 trial of the PSR in Moscow only further complicate the issue concerning Antonov's concrete connections to the PSR organization in Tambov before the outbreak of the rebellion. See Sudebnyi protsess nad sotsialistami-revoliutsionerami (iiun' - avgust 1922 g.) [The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries (June-August 1922)], ed. N. N. Pokrovskii (Moscow, 2002), 843, 868, 886-7. Since the first years following the 1905 revolution, Antonov had aligned himself with a small group of 'independent' SRs in the central agricul- tural region, and he was drawn to the more high-risk activities of underground revolutionary work, such as train robberies (or 'expropriations', as the revolutionaries themselves preferred), rather than to the more 'political' activities of agitation and popular organization. See Samoshkin, 'Aleksandr Stepanovich Antonov'. 31 The PSR work, particularly in the countryside, was geared towards the recovery of the network of contacts in the villages that had been allowed to dwindle during the three years of Soviet rule and civil war. The primary organizational axis for the renewed work in the summer of 1920 was the 'peasant unions', or STKs. The STKs were conceived as non-party institutions meant to draw in the participation of village communities, and to focus popular discontent with the Soviet regime. According to PSR pronouncements, these institutions were not intended to play a role in a violent removal of the Communist Party from power. See Partiia sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov: dokumenty i materialy, 1900-1925 [The Socialist Revolutionary Party: Documents and Materials, 1900-1925], ed. N. D. Erofeev, 3 vols. (Moscow, 2000), iii (pt 2), 637-40.

32 This was explicitly claimed by Iurii Podbel'skii, a PSR member with strong links to Tambov. Podbel'skii would later be arrested in Moscow on the grounds of his alleged involvement in the Tambov rebellion. His claims that Antonov was acting independently in attempting to organize an insurgency were substantiated by Soviet investigations completed only two months after the outbreak of the rebellion. See Iu. Podbel'skii, 'Vosstanie tambovskikh krest'ian' [The Tambov Peasant Rebellion], Revoliutsionnaia Rossiia, no. 6 (1921); The Socialist Revolutionary Party after 1917: Documents from the PSR Archive, ed. Marc Jansen (Amsterdam, 1989), 551-5; Sovety v epokhu voennogo kommunizma (1918-1921): sbornik dokumentov [The Soviets in the Age of War Communism (1918-1921): Collected Documents], ed. V. P. Antonov-Saratovskii, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1928), ii, 447-8.



conspiratorial meetings in a variety of villages and districts (volosti) in south-eastern Tambov province, Antonov not only spoke of his own experience as an SR activist, but he also impli- citly invoked the authority of the PSR Central Committee when describing the plans for an insurgency in Tambov province.33

When the violence erupted in mid August 1920, the conspiratorial work of Antonov and his druzhina was still only in its infancy. The helter-skelter way in which the conflict unfolded in these first weeks bears out such a conclusion. From the time of the first clashes between government armed forces and village-based rebels, until mid November 1920, it was very difficult for contemporary observers to identify with any confidence the organizational and ideational core or spirit of the insurgency. The elaborate conspiracy of Antonov (and the PSR), which is the prominent theme of Soviet historiography of the rebellion, was hardly in evidence.34 Rather, it was not until after these first weeks of hectic fighting, during which Soviet authorities repeatedly and mistakenly concluded that the rebellion had run out of steam, that the rebel groups were able to organize and co-ordinate activities within a more or less cohesive structure. In mid November 1920, insurgent leaders of multiple rebel groups in the region held a meeting at which they resolved to create the Partisan Army of the Tambov Region, comprising several territorially based 'regiments', and with Aleksandr Antonov assuming overall command.

The insurgents similarly created a political wing of the rebellion, in order to complement and bolster the military effort. Appro- priating the PSR project of organizing peasant unions in the villages of the countryside, the insurgents began establishing their own STKs. This project began in earnest in the month of

33 According to statements given by individuals who were present at these conspiratorial meetings in the summer of 1920, Antonov and his co-conspirators spoke regularly of the role of the 'Centre' in the overall plans for the insurrection. For instance, see Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv [Russian State Military Archive], Moscow (hereafter RGVA), f. 34228, op. 1, d. 299, 11. 32-3; Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 205-6.

34 This is especially true for state representatives sent beyond the provincial capital to organize the counter-insurgency effort in the countryside. See Ia. Smolenskii, 'Otchet o voenno-politicheskoi rabote komendanta Rasskazovskogo raiona tov. Smolenskogo s 31 avgusta po 5 oktiabria 1920 g.' [Report of Comrade Smolenskii, Commandant of the Rasskazov Region, on Political and Military Work from 31 August to 5 October 1920], Manuscript (n.d.), Tambovskii oblastnoi kraevedche- skii muzei [Tambov Region Museum of Folklore, History and Economy], Tambov (Russia).



December, at a time when the government and army in Tambov were in disarray as a result of their inability to suppress the disturbances in the province effectively. The effort to consolidate the territory of the insurgency through the creation of peasant unions was facilitated by the composition of a single political platform for the Tambov provincial STK organization and the Partisan Army. Emerging only at the beginning of December 1920, the eighteen-point platform was the centrepiece of rebel overtures to the local population.35 While the programme con- tained many objectives that would have been of practical value to the rural communities, the most impassioned rhetoric was reserved for the platform's preamble:

The Union of the Toiling Peasantry makes as its first objective the overthrow of Communist-Bolshevik power, which has taken our country to the point of poverty, death and disgrace, and towards the destruction of this hateful power and the order to which it has given rise, the Union, having organized volunteer partisan detachments, has launched an armed struggle.36

When a partisan regiment or unit entered a given village, a general assembly of community members would be called, and the 'political commissar' attached to the partisan unit would read out the programme of the STK. Following this and other introductory remarks concerning the insurgency, the community would be asked to vote on the issue of joining the partisan movement - to decide whether theirs would become a 'rebel' village or not. Although there were cases in which communities rejected this offer, in nearly all, a vote in favour of the resolution to join the insurgency was secured. In one case (and presumably in others), the declaration of support for the rebellion was passed within the village from household to household, requiring the signature of each head of household, personally implicating them in the defiant act. Partisan Army organizers also recorded those who refused to sign, separately.37

The signed declarations were colourfully worded statements of support for resistance to the Soviet government. Many communities signed declarations that spoke of their persistent hatred

35 Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 79-80. 36 Ibid.

37Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Tambovskoi oblasti [State Archive of the Tambov Region], Tambov (hereafter GATO), f. R-1979, op. 1, d. 1090, 11. 108, 110, 117, 151, 241-3.



of the Communist regime - the Communist 'dogs' and 'vam- pires' - and the fact that they had long awaited the moment when their hatred would be mobilized and organized to challenge the state effectively. They spoke of 'our civil war' and 'our revolution', of 'slavery' under Communist rule, and the chance to 'take the fate of the Toiling Peasantry into our own hands'. In the village of Malyi Burnachek, a meeting of two hundred people signed the following declaration:

We, the citizens of two villages (dereven'), brought together at a meeting led by comrade Ostroukhov and having heard several reports by him and others, declare that we have always been enemies of the Communist regime, but until now we have not been organized, until now have been unable to break the shameful chains of slavery, unable to overcome the pitiful fear which pervaded our souls and froze our hearts - fear which we ourselves allowed to build and was used by the blood-sucking communists to bleed us of the labourer's blood. Now we have broken the chains of fear, and have begun to dismantle the enmity, sown among us by the communists, which divided us and allowed them to survive and reap many fruits. Now we stand organized, strong and powerful (strashnye), proclaiming a merciless struggle against the regime of the vampire-communists.38 What followed the adoption of such a declaration was often

the election of a local peasant union. Over three hundred such institutions can be documented to have formed during the course of the rebellion in Tambov.39 These village and district STKs were composed of three or more individuals, preferably literate members of the community who would be able to undertake the bureaucratic responsibilities associated with the partisan effort. As such, those who had previously served in the soviet administration were favoured by both the local villagers and the partisan leaders. A marked continuity exists between the dismantled local soviets and the village and district STKs, in which the same personnel served in both Soviet state and rebel institutions. Because these STK members were the local representatives of the insurgency, and would be sought out as such by Soviet officials, the decision by local communities to elect former soviet personnel to these positions may be seen as a protective measure, reducing the risk that the community as a whole would bear the wrath of Soviet and Red Army reprisals. There are many cases in which such STK members, following

38 Tsentr dokumentatsii noveishei istorii Tambovskoi oblasti [Centre for the Docu- mentation of Modem History, Tambov Region], Tambov (hereafter TsDNITO), f. 840, op. 1, d. 1110, 1. 94.

39 Esikov and Kanishchev, '"Antonovskii NEP"', 75.


216 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 183 their arrest by state officials, claimed that they had been selected against their will or better judgement, at the insistence of the community members present at the organizational meeting. It is difficult to assess these claims, made while in the custody of Red Army and Cheka officials in the course of the suppression of the insurgency in 1921. Still, many of the statements given by former STK members suggest that the pressure placed on them by local community members indicated a rapidly developing sense of collective identity animating the insurgency. Perhaps at the behest of Partisan Army agitators, community members electing former soviet officials to positions in the STK would confront those unwilling to serve in the STK, reasoning (in the words of one statement) that 'you are willing to work in the soviet, yet you are not willing to serve us'.40

Rebel propaganda would regularly pass through the villages that had established a peasant union, as units of the Partisan Army relied on these villages, both for material support and as hubs for the circulation of information co-ordinating rebel efforts. For much of the duration of the insurgency, units of the Partisan Army were organized territorially, with each unit rarely straying from its native region. Naturally, soldiers regularly returned to their native villages, either by official leave of absence or without such authorization. These partisan soldiers often proved to be fully familiar with the goals and slogans of the insurgent effort. Those captured by the Red Army in the beginning of 1921 - that is, at the height of the insurgency - provided statements which ranged from the rather vague ('We are fighting for a better way of life') to the more specific reflections of the official programme of the Peasant Union ('We are fighting to overthrow Soviet power, and to establish the Constituent Assembly').41 Indeed, as reported by Red Army intelligence

40 GATO, f. R-1979, op. 1, d. 1090, 11. 60, 124, 442. The former members of local soviets were obviously in a difficult situation, since refusing to serve in the STK, if called upon to do so, could leave them open to reprisals by partisan units or members of the local community. In one case, the local community of Petrovskoe (Tambov county) took measures to ensure that a former soviet member was protected from such reprisals; a letter was drafted to Partisan Army command, stating: 'The fellow community members of former soviet chairman Nikita Timofeevich Zakhatov wish to state that he has never done anything to harm the local population, and that it is clear from his documents that he has never been a member of any political party'. See TsDNITO, f. 840, op. 1, d. 1110, 1. 132.

41 Fatueva, 'Oprosnye listy plennykh i perebezhchikov'; Esikov and Kanishchev, '"Antonovskii NEP"', 76.



agents, morale within the regiments of the Partisan Army was excellent, just as the rebels persistently claimed in their public declarations.42 When they entered villages during their moves through the countryside, it was not uncommon for these foot soldiers - and not the 'elite' political commissars - to deliver agitational speeches to the assembled.

People in the countryside of Tambov, and in the towns, were regularly exposed to, and confronted by, the ideas and goals proclaimed by the Partisan Army and the STK.43 But what sort of resonance could slogans which took the Constituent Assembly as their centrepiece actually have in the countryside? The dis- solution of the original Constituent Assembly in January 1918 had been greeted with almost complete indifference, especially in the countryside, despite the fact that the rate of participation in the elections had been exceptionally strong. The major attempt to launch a popular movement in the defence of the Assembly, the Komuch government of the upper Volga region, had proven disastrous, particularly due to its inability to arouse popular support in the countryside.44 Oliver Radkey, the historian of the Constituent Assembly, its majority political party (the PSR) and the Antonov rebellion, heaped scorn on the idea that the Con- stituent Assembly could represent a serious goal for a popular movement in 1920 and 1921, calling it a 'hoary shibboleth', which was doomed to failure in whatever revived form. The place of the Constituent Assembly in partisan propaganda only confirmed, for Radkey, the conclusion that 'there was nothing behind it [the Antonov rebellion] except the elemental discontent of the populace and whatever its leaders could add on their own'.45

42This was the impression given in a rather despondent report by the commander of Red Army forces in Tambov, K. V. Redz'ko, in December 1920. See Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 76-8.

43 In a letter intercepted by provincial censors, one local whose village was located in the heart of the insurgency claimed that, in his village, 'neutrality is simply not permitted'. In the provincial capital, Tambov city, officials in the Military Commissariat were angered to learn that office workers at the Commissariat did not speak of the conflict in terms of 'ours' and 'bandits', but instead in terms of 'partisans' and 'Reds'. GATO, f. R-1, op. 1, d. 183, 11. 466-7; Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [State Archive of the Russian Federation], Moscow (hereafter GARF), f. 8415, op. 1, d. 112, 1. 24.

44 L. G. Protasov, Vserossiiskoe uchreditel'noe sobranie: istoriia rozhdeniia i gibeli [The All-Russian Constituent Assembly: A History of its Birth and Death] (Moscow, 1997); Figes, Peasant Russia, Civil War, 162-83. Komuch was the shorthand title for the 'Committee of the Constituent Assembly' (komitet uchreditel'nogo sobraniia).

45 Radkey, Unknown Civil War in Soviet Russia, 408, 413.


218 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 183 For much of the civil war, use of the Constituent Assembly

in popular slogans served to distinguish political actors as anti- Bolshevik. In raising the image of the Constituent Assembly, opponents were identifying with the revolution of 1917, but not with the Soviet government of the Bolshevik party. It is unlikely that the villagers of Tambov who were involved in the insurgency in 1920-1 knew much of the internal workings of consti- tutional democracy. In general, some have questioned how a village culture, so steeped in anti-democratic traditions and arbitrary authority structures, could have apprehended or par- ticipated in a genuinely democratic political system.46 While these objections are justified, it nevertheless remains that these ideas of democracy, rule of law, and the Constituent Assembly pervaded the movement, albeit not in the purest of forms. For instance, Olga Sineleva related to investigators that she had understood that, in place of the deposed Soviet regime, a Con- stituent Assembly would be elected together with a new 'Tsar', who would have a fixed term of five years; if the people approved of this 'Tsar', she explained, they would elect him for a further five-year term.47 She had learned of these designs from none other than Antonov himself, whom she had met and with whom she had spent some time during the course of the insurgency.48 Certainly the trickling down of slogans and symbols does not in itself prove the significance of these concepts for shaping either individual motivations or perceptions of the events that sur- rounded those individuals. Still, even the most simple utterances suggesting a collective endeavour, such as 'our revolution' and

46 For a recent example, see Boris Mironov, 'Peasant Popular Culture and the Origins of Soviet Authoritarianism', in Stephen Frank and Mark D. Steinberg (eds.), Cultures in Flux: Lower-Class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1994).

47 Such a mixture of 'democratic' and 'autocratic' language was in evidence in 1917, when commoners were overheard speaking of actually electing the last Tsar, Nicholas II, to some sort of executive office. In the case here, however, it seems clear that, three years on, any residual deference to the former monarchy was on the wane. See Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 (London, 1996), 350-1.

48 Sineleva was evidently in good company, as Soviet investigators would learn. Bemused by how many young women had 'entertained' the partisan leader, and yet annoyed by how little they seemed to know about the man himself, one government investigator noted in the margin of a report: 'It is obvious that Antonov would not be able to speak in confidence with each and every one of his lovers, seeing as he had at least one in practically every village in the region'. See GATO, f. R-4049, op. 1, d. 198, 1. 14lob.



'our civil war', indicate that the rebel movement was built on the memory of 1917, and distinctly challenged the Communist regime's claim to legitimacy as the custodians of that revolution. In doing this, more explicit goals, such as the restoration of the Constituent Assembly, were situated in a framework that consti- tuted the prevailing political idiom of the day.49

The rebellion in Tambov, however, was distinctly non- democratic. From the first clashes with state agents that mark its beginning, the Antonov rebellion was characterized more by violence inspired by vengeance than it was an embodiment of the ideals that formed the basis of its political platform. On a general level, the intensity of the conflict is best understood, according to various researchers who have studied the civil war countryside, as a war of vengeance against the array of bogeymen in the provincial and local context - commissars and chairmen, commanders and comrades - whose actions during the course of the civil war had so embittered and demeaned village communities.50 The collective 'we' being projected during the course of the conflicts in 1920 and 1921 was that of local peasants, and their campaigns of vengeance were directed against local representatives of Soviet power.51 According to this logic, Antonov's personal fixation on overcoming the label 'bandit' had little or no resonance in the countryside, where little moti- vation was required to spill the blood of Communist Party members and commissars, and to pillage state collective farms. The peasants in Tambov had little incentive, let alone ability, to access the full scope of the political ideas and programme of the rebellion in the same way that leaders such as Antonov may have done. The development of the insurgency bears out this conclusion. The failure to actualize its 'democratic' claims forms

49 See Sidney Tarrow, 'Mentalities, Political Cultures, and Collective Action Frames: Constructing Meaning through Action', in Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller (eds.), Frontiers in Social Movement Theory (New Haven, 1992); William H. Sewell, Jr, 'Ideologies and Social Revolutions: Reflections on the French Case', fl Mod. Hist., Ivii (1985).

SoDuGarm, 'Peasant Wars in Tambov Province'; Osipova, 'Krest'ianstvo v grazhdanskoi voine'; V. V. Samoshkin, 'Antonovshchina: kanun i nachalo' [The Antonov Affair: The Eve and the Beginning], Literaturnaia Rossiia, 8 June 1990.

51 This partially informs Brovkin's conclusion that it is best to speak of multiple 'civil wars', rather than a single event. See Vladimir N. Brovkin, 'Introduction: New Tasks in the Study of the Russian Revolution and Civil War', in Brovkin (ed.), Bolsheviks in Russian Society.



the main theme of the only serious study of the internal workings of the Partisan Army and the peasant unions of Tambov. In the estimation of Sergei Esikov and Vladimir Kanishchev, the STK organization - the 'political' wing of the insurgency, which grew into a network of local institutions in the countryside of Tambov - never managed to develop beyond the scope of a support structure for the military efforts of the Partisan Army.52

But there are important ways through which the partisan population could access the ideological claims of the insurgents, and through which the goals and ideas of the resistance movement could achieve salience during the period of intense activity on the anti-Soviet front in Tambov.

III GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT

The pages of Pravda and Izvestiia, throughout the period of the civil war (and beyond), continually carried brief reports of developments in the revolutionary movement in other parts of the world, particularly in Western Europe. The smallest street dem- onstration by workers in Britain or Germany, in some cases, would be reported as an indication of the coming revolution in the West. Of central importance was the example of the Soviet Republic, whose own proletarian revolution served to inspire and lead radical developments in the rest of the world. During the civil war, such reports were placed alongside calls to vigilance and to the front in the campaign against counter-revolution. 'Counter-revolution' could be embodied by a variety of entities: by the White General Petr Wrangel or the Polish nationalist J6zef Pilsudski, and by the Russian Orthodox Church or the village-based kulaks.53 Encouraging signs of worldwide revolution were placed alongside images of the revolution at home under siege. Take the following illustration, from rebel propaganda in Tambov province:

52 Esikov and Kanishchev, '"Antonovskii NEP"'. 53 Edward Acton has noted that the Tsarist regime, too, had ('since time imme-

morial') traded heavily on the threat of hostile foreign powers, relying on this as a source of legitimation. See Edward Acton, 'Comparing the Revolutions of 1917 and 1991', in Moira Donald and Tim Rees (eds.), Reinterpreting Revolution in Twentieth-Century Europe (Basingstoke, 2001), 61.



Comrade partisans! The turning point has been reached. Our strength grows with each passing day. The power of the communists is melting away like the snow. Every day new villages, towns, and even entire provinces, are breaking away from communist rule. It was not long ago that the authority of the communists had spread throughout the central provinces and other places, such as Ukraine, the Volga, a portion of the Caucasus (a large part of the Caucasus had never known, and never will know, communist authority), and, as if this were not enough, Siberia. But now the entire south of Russia, including the Caucasus, has been engulfed in a general uprising, Ukraine is routing the Bolsheviks, and in Siberia, according to the accounts of these same communists, Semenov is once again up to no good. In the central provinces, it has been almost a year and communists everywhere have not found themselves respite, and, according to official information, once-communist cities, such as Kronshtadt and Petersburg, have chased away the communists and have established their own rule, the same type of rule for which we have fought for more than seven months, and for which we will continue to fight.54

Repeatedly emphasized in rebel propaganda was the claim that the partisans in Tambov were far from alone in their challenge to Soviet power. Quite the contrary, as the concluding words of the same proclamation (vozzvanie) make clear: 'The end of their dictatorship in sight, the communists are in despair; not even sparing their own lives against the flood, they are fighting against the river, even if to prolong their dominion for only a day, or a week'.

The protocols of meetings of the peasant unions mirror those of their soviet counterparts in that they regularly opened with reports 'On the present moment', in which details of the pro- gress of the rebellion were related, as well as news from other 'fronts' - from Siberia, Ukraine, Petrograd and Moscow. Speeches made to assemblies of locals in the villages of the insurgency related 'intelligence' and scouting reports. Occasional emissaries were sent outside the region of the insurgency, in order to learn of developments in neighbouring provinces and regions. Of particular interest was Voronezh province, where a similar rebellion, led by Ivan Kolesnikov, had erupted at the beginning of 1921. When Kolesnikov was finally driven out of Voronezh, he crossed the border into Tambov province with 1,500 men (mainly on horseback), and his force was quickly integrated into the Partisan Army, an event hailed as the joining of the Partisan Armies of the Tambov and Voronezh regions.55 Efforts to expand

54 Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 142. 55 The fact that Kolesnikov's force was driven out of Voronezh by reinforced Red

Army cavalry in the province was, predictably, glossed over. See GARF, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 127, 1. 87; RGVA, f. 25887, op. 1, d. 37, 11. 212-212ob, 285.



the rebellion into Saratov at the beginning of 1921 played a similar role, although these units of the Partisan Army, as well as the few peasant unions organized in Saratov territory, were relatively short-lived.56

As the Red Army was able to commit more and more forces to the conflict in Tambov, the polemic over the character and legitimacy of the rebellion, which began even before its outbreak (as indicated by Antonov's letter to the authorities in Kirsanov county in February 1920), intensified concomitantly. Despite the fact that internal reports investigating the continuing conflict emphasized the essential difficulty and problem with the persistent treatment of the insurgency as 'banditry', the propaganda war waged by Soviet authorities only worked to amplify this theme." While the state authorities drafted plans for a mass political campaign to marginalize the rebels and to decouple the movement from its partisan base, officials in Moscow and in Tambov, chastened by these critical state investigations, began falling over one another in their haste to acknowledge in official correspondence that the rebellion in Tambov was, in fact, a 'partisan movement'.58

56 GATO, f. R-4049, op. 1, d. 89, 11. 300ob, 127-127ob; RGVA, f. 235, op. 5, d. 136, 1. 45. According to the memoirs of one Cheka agent active in Saratov at the time, the political platform was found circulating throughout Saratov province, including the Red Army garrisons, factories and towns: see G. V. Vedeniapin, 'Antonovshchina' [The Antonov Affair], Volga, nos. 5-6 (1997), 232.

57 According to the most scathing report, the result of an investigation conducted by the Internal Security administration in December 1920, this was one of the factors prohibiting an effective pacification of the conflict: 'Regrettably, even up until the last moment, the character of the movement was not definitely established by local authorities [in Tambov], and was interpreted as "banditry" even by the most authoritative organs such as the provincial Cheka, and they clung to this characterization even in August-September of this year, revealing themselves to be neither sufficiently activist nor far-sighted'. See Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 83.

58 The centrepiece of the propaganda front was the wall newspaper 'The Truth about the Bandits' (Pravda o banditakh), which was published in earnest beginning in 1921. At the same time, security officials were reporting to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK): 'The Antonov insurgency is a partisan insurgency, engrossing the territory of three counties in Tambov province; it is well organized, planned and led by the SRs; and it has assumed a sustained and pro- tracted character, along the lines of the example set by Makhno's partisans'. See Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 86, 103; GARF, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 110, 1. 7. On the internal and external language of Soviet and Communist Party officials, see Donald Raleigh, 'Languages of Power: How the Saratov Bolsheviks Imagined their Enemies', Slavic Rev., Ivii (1998).



The emphasis in partisan propaganda on the relational setting for the events in Tambov contributed to shaping a sense of opportunity and worthiness that was vital to the mobilization of village communities and to the sustenance of the rebel effort in the province.59 '[W]e are truly not bandits, as the robber- Communists claim, but we are honourable fighters for the ideals of the oppressed', read one of the appeals issued by the Partisan Army.60 To add weight to these claims, they cited the calls to vigilance issued by the Soviet authorities, effectively turning on their head the state's declarations of la patrie en danger. Major 'kulak' uprisings in Ukraine and the Caucasus, and smaller ones in the Central Black Earth and Volga regions, combined with continued disturbances in eastern Siberia, as well as a major insurgency in western Siberia.61 Political opposition both within the Communist Party and amongst the working classes was steadily reaching fever pitch early in 1921, and it was only a short time before violence would erupt at the Kronshtadt naval base.62 Although these multiple fronts of 'counter-revolution' had little or no concrete connection to one another, they were perceived by state officials to be constituent parts of a single threat to Soviet power within its own borders.

59 Charles Tilly, 'Social Movements as Historically Specific Clusters of Political Performances', Berkeley Jl Sociol., xxxviii (1993-4), 13-15.

60 Krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tambovskoi gubernii, ed. Danilov and Shanin, 97. 61 Likewise, rebels in western Siberia would rely on Soviet government documents, obtained in the course of raids, to learn of events in other parts of the region and the republic. See, for example, Sibirskaia vandeia [The Siberian Vendee], ed. V. I. Shishkin, 2 vols. (Moscow, 2000-1), ii, 335-6 (2 Mar. 1921).

62 On the events in south-eastern Ukraine, see V. L. Telitsyn, Nestor Makhno (Moscow, 1998); V. N. Volkovinskii, Makhno i ego krakh [Makhno and his Demise] (Moscow, 1991); Aleksandr Shubin, Makhno i makhnovskoe dvizhenie [Makhno and the Makhnovist Movement] (Moscow, 1998). On uprisings in Siberia, see Za sovety bez kommunistov: krest'ianskoe vosstanie v Tiumenskoi gubernii 1921 g. [For Soviets without Communists: Peasant Rebellion in Tiumen' Province, 1921], ed. V. I. Shishkin (Novosibirsk, 2000); V. Moskovkin, 'Vosstanie krest'ian v Zapadnoi Sibiri v 1921 godu' [The Rebellion of Peasants in Western Siberia in 1921], Voprosy istorii, no. 6 (1998). On Moscow, Petrograd and the Kronshtadt uprising, see Richard Sakwa, Soviet Communists in Power: A Study of Moscow during the Civil War, 1918-21 (Basingstoke, 1988), 240-4; Jonathan Aves, Workers against Lenin: Labour Protest and the Bolshevik Dictatorship (London, 1996); Mary McAuley, 'Bread without the Bourgeoisie', in Diane P. Koenker, William G. Rosenberg and Ronald Grigor Suny (eds.), Party, State, and Society in the Russian Civil War: Explo- rations in Social History (Bloomington, 1989); Piterskie rabochie i 'Diktatura proletariata', oktiabr' 1917-1929: ekonomicheskie konflikty i politicheskii protest [Petersburg Workers and the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat', October 1917-1929: Economic Conflicts and Political Protest], ed. V. Iu. Cherniaev (St Petersburg, 2000); Kronshtadt, 1921, ed. V. P. Naumov and A. A. Kosakovskii (Moscow, 1997).



This crisis on the 'internal front' that the Communist regime had to face in early 1921 represented a picture of opportunity and solidarity to partisans active in Tambov. According to one of the individuals who joined the Partisan Army:

We would regularly call village assemblies, which would be led by our unit commander, Kanishchev. I, Volkov, would explain to the assembled citizens that in the political centre - that is, Moscow - and in other important parts of the Republic, there were partisan armies which were fighting for the cause of the workers and peasants, and without question, these armies would soon be unified with our very own Partisan Army.63

There are several indications that such a contextualization was not simply a matter of propaganda for the insurgency in Tambov. Instead, rebellion leaders and participants believed their own movement to be constituent of a larger campaign against the Communist regime. A true thirst for information about developments elsewhere in Soviet territory structured many of the activities of the Partisan Army and the STK organization in Tambov.

For instance, taking Red Army prisoners involved a process of debriefing, in which Red Army soldiers were interrogated more about their knowledge of other 'fronts' in the anti-Bolshevik movement, than they were about their knowledge of Red Army efforts within Tambov itself. (One exception in this regard was Red Army troop morale, which particularly occupied the attentions of Partisan Army commissars.) Such interrogations concerning other uprisings were conducted by even the lowest echelons in the Partisan Army/STK structure, and were not the preserve of the senior partisan leadership.64 Similarly, ordinary citizens from partisan villages would be enlisted to gather information, especially those whose villages were located near railway stations or provincial towns, which could be hubs of information and gossip about events and developments elsewhere. The Soviet authorities called these individuals 'spies', and in some rare

63 GATO, f. R-5201, op. 2, d. 2558, 1. 48. Volkov's statement was taken in February 1921; he was executed the day after.

64 According to a Cheka summary report (svodka) on this matter: 'The interrogation of the captured Red Army soldier is conducted by a political worker who asks questions according to an official list of prepared questions'. See GARF, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 127, 11. 45ob, 74ob. Particularly important in this respect was the demobilization of Red Army servicemen, beginning in December 1920 - January 1921, many of whom would fall into the ranks of the Partisan Army upon their return to their native province. These men were routinely sought out by the Partisan Army, as much for their knowledge of other regions of the Soviet Republic, as for their ability to fight in the rebel regiments.



cases they were, such as those who were specially delegated by the Partisan Army and STK to travel to nearby provinces in order to gather information about similar insurgencies and about the disposition of the local population towards the Soviet regime and towards the partisan movement.65

The extent to which this improvised network of information had progressed was only sporadically revealed to Soviet officials. One young boy (only sixteen years of age) from Penza province, Semen Samokho, was apprehended in Tambov near the border with Saratov. He was found to be a spy working for the Saratov rebel Popov, and had been travelling throughout the region on the railways, establishing contacts with similar 'spies' from Tambov, Ukraine, Penza and the Don region. He told Soviet investigators that a basic system of designations had been devel- oped to help assist the network. 'Spies' could be identified at busy railway stations by what they wore. For instance, one could recognize an agent of Makhno's army by his military service cap that would have a small bundle of black thread attached to the left side; an agent of Antonov's Partisan Army could be identified by his boots, one of which would be cut shorter than the other; a spy from Penza, representing the rebel group led by Marus', would have the peak of his (or her) cap cut in a distinc- tive way.66 Through these simple markings of distinction, the network of 'spying' was facilitated at several of the railway stations in the region.

65 'Spying' could take many forms. Information was regularly gathered concerning events in provincial towns, particularly concerning the 'attitude' (nastroenie) of the local population, by individuals from nearby villages who would travel regularly to and from the towns. In the countryside, Red Army units were typically spotted by STK 'spies' who would be placed at points of high ground, and would dig holes deep enough to hide in, with only their heads clear of the ground to maintain a clear view of the surrounding area. More elaborately, both in Saratov province and in Tambov, Partisan Army 'spies' had been enlisted within the Cheka, Military Commissariat and militia, who would write reports for partisan leaders about activities within the Soviet administration. Given the extent of these activities, the paranoia of Soviet authorities, which often led them to make random arrests of anyone who seemed to be 'asking questions', is more easily understood, despite the occasional warnings against what was called 'spy-mania' (shpionomaniia). See TsDNITO, f. 840, op. 1, d. 1112, 1. 106; GATO, f. R-4049, op. 1, d. 89, 1. 35; GARF, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 112, 1. 2; GARF, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 124, 11. 2-3; GARF, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 127, 11. 37-37ob; Vedeniapin, 'Antonovshchina', 223-4.

66 RGVA, f. 235, op. 6, d. 12, 1. 37; GARF, f. 8415, op. 1, d. 124,1. 2. How symbolic these designations were is difficult to assess, although the role of the colour black in identifying agents of the professed anarchist Nestor Makhno is suggestive.



Such characteristics of the partisan insurgencies indicate the extent to which rebels viewed their efforts much as the Soviet authorities did - as constituent of a larger, unified and pro- found anti-Bolshevik movement. As suggested by its title, the 'Partisan Army of the Tambov Region' thrived on information that provided a context for its own activities. Individuals at virtually every level of the rebel organization were active in gather- ing, vetting or relaying 'intelligence' of one sort or another, ensuring that this overall context was a persistent feature of the collective identity promoted by the movement. Framing the political opportunities for resistance to the Soviet regime in this way made the overall goals and ideals the movement advanced more accessible and tangible to participants at all levels. That the ties which connected the various fronts of anti-Communism were often more imagined than real - once again, a trait shared by all parties to the conflict - should not diminish the importance of these ties to the subjective world of insurgency participants.67

IV WAITING FOR MAKHNO

The complementary public narratives so central to the collective identity of insurgents and regime supporters alike would continue to play a vital role in the history of the rebellion in Tambov until virtually the last days of organized resistance by

67 AS researchers into contemporary social movements emphasize, certain lines of collective action 'emerge or fail to emerge not because objective conditions allow or prohibit them', but rather because 'actors perceive "objective" conditions as allow- ing or prohibiting them': see Scott A. Hunt, Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow, 'Identity Fields: Framing Processes and the Social Construction of Movement Identities', in Enrique Larafia, Hank Johnston and Joseph R. Gusfield (eds.), New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity (Philadelphia, 1994), 204. A recent study of political violence and terror in the French and Russian revolutions makes a similar point regarding the 'imagined context' as a shared characteristic of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements, rather than being the exclusive preserve of the political culture of revolutionaries: see Arno Mayer, The Furies: Terror and Violence in the French and Russian Revolutions (Princeton, 2000), 53. See also Richard Cobb, Reactions to the French Revolution (Oxford, 1972), 8. V. I. Shishkin, in his introduction to the collection of documents pertaining to the rebellions in western Siberia in 1920-1, writes of the degree of 'disinformation' and 'falsified' reports peddled by both the rebels and Soviet officials, especially as regards the strength of the insurgents and their ties to other insurgencies. See Sibirskaia vandeia, ed. Shishkin, i, 10-11.



the Partisan Army.68 In the spring of 1921, the Red Army and the Soviet government made two major changes in their approach to the rebellion in Tambov. First, the Red Army began com- mitting larger and larger numbers of troops and weapons to the territory. Second, the government undertook a major policy retreat when it announced the end of forced grain requisitioning and of the policy of centrally defined collection targets (razverstka) in food procurement. In addition, the government agreed to ease the restrictions on private trade. Both of these reforms became central pillars of the New Economic Policy that took shape in the early 1920s.69 In terms of the effect these changes brought to the situation in Tambov, they are almost impossible to separate. The increase in the number of troops that were visible and active in the countryside as part of a developing system of 'occupation' was as much a challenge to rebel supremacy in the field of battle as the concessionary measures concerning the local economy were challenges to rebel legitimacy. Until this point, state authorities had never effectively engaged the popular aspect of the insurgency, but had instead continued to denounce rebel leaders as 'bandits', incapable of advocating ideals and goals that would find popular support. With the policy changes settled upon at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party in March 1921, the government announced a 'retreat' that was promoted as effectively satisfying the demands of the peasant population. In so doing, the Soviet government sought to under- mine the support for rebel armies by acknowledging and redefin- ing the popular legitimacy of the partisan cause.70

68 On narratives and social identity, see Margaret R Somers, 'The Narrative Constitu- tion of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach', Theory and Society, xxiii (1994).

69 This is not to say that the end of the razverstka was brought about entirely due to the events in the province of Tambov. Nevertheless, local authorities in Tambov announced an end to grain requisitioning over a month before the decisions of the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party. See I. Ia. Trifonov, Klassy i klassovaia bor'ba v SSSR v nachale NEPa, 1921-1923 gg. [Classes and the Class Struggle in the USSR at the Onset of the NEP, 1921-1923] (Leningrad, 1964), 199. On the long history of the tax-in-kind and the eventual end of the razverstka, see S. A. Pavliuchenkov, Krest'ianskii Brest, ili predystoriia bolshevistskogo NEPa [The Peasant Brest, or the Prehistory of the Bolshevik NEP] (Moscow, 1996).

70 The commander of Red Army forces in Tambov at the time makes much the same point in his analysis. See Tukhachevskii, 'Bor'ba s kontrrevoliutsionnymi vosstaniiami', pt 2, 6-7. John Markoff makes a similar argument when he describes the National Assembly's legislation in 1789 as an effort 'to define, direct, control, and even embody' the popular movement in the French countryside: see John Markoff, The Abolition of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords, and Legislators in the French Revolution (Philadelphia, 1996), 426.



The most high-profile illustration of this tactic was a short propaganda pamphlet, the most widely circulated piece of anti- Antonov literature published during the period of the insurgency. Entitled 'What Comrade Lenin Told the Peasants from Tambov Province', the pamphlet describes a set-piece meeting between Lenin and a delegation of villagers from Tambov, hand-picked by provincial officials, in which the most powerful Soviet official listened attentively and reassuringly to the grievances of his peasant subjects.7 Striking a familiar tsarist idiom, the Lenin portrayed in the pamphlet agrees that the material situation confronting the peasants of Tambov is intolerable. He promises that these hardships will be alleviated in the near future, and he entertains at some length the possibility that local officials may be to blame for the situation confronting the peasants. The Comrade-batiushka (little father) is quoted in the pamphlet as telling the Tambov peasants: 'If the peasants are still unhappy with their local representatives, then you must inform the provincial authorities, and if the provincial authorities fail to pay any attention, then inform Moscow, the Kremlin, me [Lenin]. You may address your problems to me by post or in person'.72

The pamphlet was the centrepiece of Soviet political work in the countryside of Tambov, and it complemented both the announced end of requisitioning in the province, and later the introduction of the new 'tax-in-kind' policy of grain procurement by the state. As the mil

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