The Tambov Rebellion: Peasants vs the Bolshevik State

In 1920, as the Russian Civil War wound down, a new uprising erupted in the fertile black earth region of Tambov province. Peasants who had supported the Bolsheviks against the Whites now turned their guns on the Red Army, protesting forced grain requisitions and collectivisation. Led by Alexander Antonov, a former Socialist Revolutionary, the Tambov Rebellion grew into a full-scale peasant war, with over 50,000 fighters organised into a Green Army. The Bolshevik response was brutal: Mikhail Tukhachevsky, fresh from crushing Kronstadt, was dispatched with chemical weapons, concentration camps, and a scorched-earth policy. The uprising was crushed by 1922, but its memory haunted Soviet agricultural policy and foreshadowed the horrors of dekulakisation. This episode explores the causes, key figures, and savage suppression of the Antonovshchina—the largest peasant revolt against early Soviet power.

#TambovRebellion #Antonovshchina #AlexanderAntonov #MikhailTukhachevsky #RussianCivilWar #PeasantUprising #GreenArmy #WarCommunism #GrainRequisition #Tambov #Bolsheviks #ChemicalWeapons #ConcentrationCamps #Dekulakisation #SovietHistory #EasternEurope #History #FexingoHistory

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