The Civil War had ended, the White (or Imperial) Armies had sailed away, but the desperate policies of the Bolshevik party had brought the country to its knees. Many of the Kronstadt sailors' were from peasant families and the letters received from home made for depressing reading. But some of the party elite were beginning to conspicuously beginning to enjoy the priveleges of power.
By the end of 1920, Raskolnokov and Reisner lived a comfortable life in Kronstadt complete with full staff. When not at home they made full use of the flagship and held regular reception parties and they became deeply unpopular with the sailors. The sailors had seen over the civil war, their direct act of democracy in 1917 being replaced with commissars, by people appointed above them, banning of their daily meetings, control of their Soviet and to an extent they had been prepared to put up with that for the civil war period by with as the Civil War had wained, the soldiers anticipated a fulfilment on promises of Soviet Democracy.
The soldiers of Kronstadt who were the heros of the Russian Revolution, are betrayed by Lenin and the Communist (Bolshevik) Party, and the Red Army advance on Kronstadt. Goals of the 1917 Revolution are lost in the last hope for Russian democracy. (Scene from "Russian Revolution in Color")
Kronstadt Soldiers Duped by Lenin and the Bolsheviks (Part II)
References
Russian Revolution in Color (DVD)
The Russian Revolution and Civil War, this bloodsoaked time from the battlefields, testimonies, and colorized archives help unfold the dramatic story of the Communist rise and seizure of power in 1917.
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