The Yaroslavl Uprising (known in Soviet historiography as the Yaroslavl Rebellion) was an episode of the Civil War in Russia, an anti–Bolshevik protest by the townspeople and members of Boris Savinkov's organization in Yaroslavl on July 6–21, 1918. Suppressed by the forces of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. The uprising began untimely, since the Extraordinary Commission by that moment had begun arresting the Moscow branch of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom. This inopportune and inability to coordinate with other anti–Bolshevik forces around the region of the uprising predetermined an unfortunate outcome. The lack of reinforcements and ammunition from the rebels also affected.
Preconditions and organization of the uprising
Along with the Rybinsk Uprising and the Murom Uprising, the Yaroslavl Uprising was organized by the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, created by Boris Savinkov with the approval of the command of the Volunteer Army in the person of Generals Lavr Kornilov and Mikhail Alekseev. The purpose of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom was to organize resistance to Bolshevism in Central Russia. Carrying out the general leadership of the uprising in these cities, Boris Savinkov sent the chief of staff of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, Colonel Alexander Perkhurov, to Yaroslavl and instructed him to lead an armed uprising there.
The organizers of the uprising were the local branch of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom. At the beginning of 1918, it was the most powerful anti–Soviet organization in Central Russia, with cells not only in Yaroslavl, but also in all large Upper Volga cities: Rybinsk, Murom, Kostroma. The presence of a well–branched underground network made it possible to create the core of the future resistance. The union interacted with local organizations of the Union of Officers, the Union of Front–line Soldiers and the Union of Saint George's Cavaliers, and also coordinated work with the anti–Soviet underground in Moscow, but due to the weakness of the latter and the growing activity of the All–Russian Extraordinary Commission, the main focus was on the provincial centers.
The choice of Yaroslavl as a stronghold for the uprising was due to a combination of several factors:
- It was a large provincial center on the Volga; the main railway to the North and Siberia ran here. Yaroslavl could be seen as the northern key to Moscow;
- After part of the local Red Guard units were sent to Moscow and the Kuban to assist in the fight against the White Movement, the number of organized and armed supporters of Soviet power in the city decreased;
- A tragic and naive belief in support of the Allies costing dearly to all white forces in the war. The rebels hoped for outside help, from anti–Soviet forces and organizations, as well as from the Entente countries (Boris Savinkov was given a promise to support the uprising by a French landing in Arkhangelsk, but in practice, the Entente landing force landed in Arkhangelsk only in August);
- Another factor that influenced the choice of Yaroslavl as a place of performance could be the deployment of the headquarters of the Yaroslavl Military District, which was engaged in the formation of Red Army units in the Northern Volga region, since March 1918. This allowed many officers to legally arrive in the city, and with the outbreak of the uprising, it immediately disorganized command and control over a vast territory;
- There is also a certain continuity of the July uprising in relation to the anti–Bolshevik resistance in Yaroslavl after October 1917. At the beginning of 1918, anti–Soviet demonstrations already took place in Yaroslavl, one of which took place on Easter days, but was quickly suppressed.
Rebellion leaders
- The general leadership of the uprising and the actions of the armed formations was carried out by the monarchist, representative of the Volunteer Army, Colonel Alexander Perkhurov;
- A railway employee, a Menshevik Ivan Savinov (according to other sources, a member of the Rescue Committee Alexander Kizner) became an assistant to the chief in civil affairs;
- Vladimir Lopatin, a homeowner, engineer by profession, who held this post until July 1917, and then worked in the Yaroslavl City Duma as a vowel, was re–appointed to the post of mayor;
- The city council included the merchant Kayukov, the cadets Sobolev and Gorelov, as well as the former attorney at law Menshevik Meshkovsky;
- The leaders of the insurgents included a former member of the provincial executive committee, socialist–revolutionary Nikolai Mamyrin, who made trips to the villages and agitated the peasants for an uprising against Soviet power;
- Also, among the participants in the uprising was the former provincial commissar of the Provisional Government Boris Duchenne (who, however, did not hold any administrative posts).
Rebellion goals
The goals of the rebels were the elimination of the Bolshevik dictatorship, the restoration of political and economic freedoms, the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, the rupture of the Brest–Litovsk Peace and, with the help of Russia's allies in the Entente, the opening of a new Eastern Front against Germany and the Bolsheviks. The right of ownership of the peasants to the land was guaranteed on the basis of the law, but by this time the land had been socialized as a "common property" and transferred to the peasants "on the basis of equalizing land use" (according to the Decree on Land adopted by the Second All–Russian Congress of Soviets on October 26, 1917, whose legitimacy by the rebels did not confess). In the Yaroslavl formula, it was not about the nationality of the land fund, but about the right of the peasant to fully own the land and about the legal guarantees of this property. Since at that time the idea of private ownership of land among the bulk of Russian peasants was not popular, it is possible that this very formulation deprived the rebels of the support of the bulk of the peasantry, since it was perceived as a smokescreen for an attempt to revise the result of the redistribution of land in 1917 with the return landlord land tenure.
The appeal also referred to the establishment of "strict legal order" as "the very first measure".
Opinions differ regarding the tactics and military objectives of the uprising. It is usually believed that the rebels hoped for help from the allies from the North (which was not received) and counted on the possibility of spreading the uprising to other cities in Central Russia and, as a result, everywhere, until the liberation of Moscow.
Events
Forces of the parties
By the beginning of the uprising, the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom was able to legally concentrate up to 300 officers in the city (the officers' union in Yaroslavl itself numbered about 200 people, another 50 people arrived from Moscow, 30 from Kaluga and 12 from Kostroma).
Further, in the very first days, the leaders of the uprising announced the re–establishment of "self–defense" at the city government (first created in November 1917, but later disbanded by the Soviet government) and enrollment in the volunteer army. On July 6, mobilization was announced – compulsory for officers and voluntary for the rest. In general, the number of those who signed up for volunteers numbered about six thousand people, who were supported by the local clergy, intellectuals, as well as peasants in some suburban villages. However, according to the recollections of Perkhurov himself, there were no more than 600–700 people directly on the front line, most of the "volunteers" dispersed soon after the start of the fighting.
By the beginning of the uprising, the Bolshevik forces in Yaroslavl numbered about 1,000 bayonets, including: the 1st Soviet Regiment (500–600 bayonets), the Special Communist Detachment (200 bayonets), an auto–machine–gun detachment consisting of two armored cars and five machine guns, and a detachment of horse militia of 100 people. At the very beginning of the uprising, military specialists from among the officers, the auto–machine–gun detachment, the police and part of the personnel of the garrison went over to the side of the rebels. A Special Communist Detachment was taken by surprise, disarmed and arrested. The 1st Soviet Regiment at first declared its neutrality, but after a few hours passed to active actions against the uprising.
Beginning of the uprising
At the beginning of the uprising, the rebels were practically unarmed – for 105 people there were only 12 different–caliber revolvers and the very possibility of a performance depended only on the capture of weapons from the enemy. On the night of July 6, 1918, the conspirators, led by Alexander Perkhurov, gathered at the Leontief cemetery on the outskirts of Yaroslavl. About half a kilometer from the cemetery there was a warehouse of weapons brought from the front. The rebels attacked the Red Army men guarding the warehouse from several sides, seized it and began to take away the weapons. Thirty armed policemen were dispatched from the city to find out what was happening in the warehouse, as the telephone connection was interrupted, but they immediately joined the rebels. Later, the entire city militia went over to their side, and the provincial militia commissar, Ensign Falaleev, led one of the rebel detachments and later died in battle.
Armed, the rebels broke up into groups and moved into the city, where the armored division under the command of Lieutenant Suponin (2 cannon armored vehicles "Garford–Putilov" and 5 large–caliber machine guns) crossed over to their side. The 1st Soviet Regiment declared its neutrality.
Already by the morning, after a short battle, the Special Communist Detachment was completely disarmed and arrested, the Governor's House was captured, in which the Executive Committee and the Provincial Extraordinary Commission were located, the post office, telegraph, radio station and treasury were occupied. Thus, the entire center of Yaroslavl was in the hands of the rebels, and then the trans–Volga part of the city – Tveritsy.
The commissar of the Yaroslavl military district David Zakheim and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the City Council Semyon Nakhimson were captured in the city apartments, who were the only insurgents killed without trial on the first day of the uprising. After the incident, Perkhurov banned lynching by issuing an order: "It is firmly remembered that we are fighting against rapists for legal order, for the principles of freedom and personal inviolability".
About 200 Soviet and party workers (including delegates to the congress), communists and their supporters were arrested and placed on a barge, which was taken from the shore and anchored.
Height of the uprising
In Soviet historiography, it is noted that the expansion and spread of the uprising was largely facilitated by the indecision, which in the early days of the uprising was displayed by the local leadership of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army – the district military commissar Vasily Arkadiev and the military leader (former Tsarist general) Nikolai Liventsev.
Having taken control of most of the city, the rebels set up their headquarters on Epiphany Square in the city drawing room near the former Transfiguration Monastery.
Alexander Perkhurov proclaimed himself "Commander–in–Chief of the Yaroslavl Province and Commander of the Group of Forces of the Northern Volunteer Army". The formation of the Northern Volunteer Army, subordinate to the high command of General Mikhail Alekseev, was announced, in the ranks of which about six thousand people signed up (of which 1600–2000 participated in the battles). Among those who entered the army were officers, workers, intellectuals, student youth, peasants from the surrounding villages. The workers of the railway workshops sent 140 people, built an armored train, and also repaired weapons and armored cars. But weapons were not enough, especially guns and machine guns (the insurgents had only 2 three–inch cannons and 15 machine guns at their disposal). Therefore, Perkhurov resorted to defensive tactics, expecting help with weapons and people from Rybinsk.
On July 8, the city was restored to the city government "on the basis of the Law of the Provisional Government of 1917".
On July 13, by his resolution, Perkhurov, to "restore law, order and public peace", abolished all bodies of Soviet power and canceled all its decrees and resolutions, and "the authorities and officials that existed under the laws in force until the October coup of 1917" were restored.