The man whose name became the rebellion: SR leader of the Tambov 'Antonovshchina,' the largest peasant uprising against Bolshevik rule
'Power was not torn from the hands of the tsarist executioners to be handed over to a handful of executioner-communists' — from a leaflet distributed during the uprising
A Socialist Revolutionary militant who served a twenty-year katorga sentence in the Schlisselburg Fortress under the Tsar for armed expropriations. Freed by the February Revolution, he became chief of the Kirsanov district militia, but the Bolsheviks' grain requisitioning and local repression drove him underground in 1918. In August 1920 he seized leadership of the Tambov peasant uprising, building a partisan army of roughly twenty regiments and an alternative government based on Unions of the Working Peasantry: the revolt was so identified with him that it became known as the 'Antonovshchina.' He was killed in a firefight with GPU forces alongside his brother Dmitri in June 1922.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1905Joined the SR Party; participated in armed expropriations
- 1908Raided Inzhavino railway station; multiple armed expropriations
- 1909Arrested; death sentence commuted to indefinite katorga — Schlisselburg, Vladimir Central
- 1917Freed by amnesty — deputy chief Tambov city militia → chief, Kirsanov district militia
- 1918–1920Went underground; formed a combat druzhina against Bolshevik authorities
- 1920–1921Chief of Main Operational Staff, Tambov Uprising — two armies, ~20 regiments
- 1921–1922In hiding after defeat; cornered and killed by GPU forces
Related historical events
- 1917.02–07The February RevolutionPrisoner freed by the revolutionHe was freed by amnesty during the February Revolution.
- 1918–1922The Civil War and Foreign InterventionTambov peasant revolt leaderLed the Tambov rebellion ('Antonovshchina'), the largest anti-Bolshevik peasant rising of 1920–1921. Crushed by Tukhachevsky's forces using chemical weapons; killed by GPU in 1922.
The Antonovshchina: Causes, Program, and Suppression of the Tambov Uprising
The uprising that began in Tambov province in August 1920 took its name, the 'Antonovshchina,' from Antonov. Its immediate cause was Bolshevik grain requisitioning (prodrazverstka): a drought left only 12 million poods harvested that year while the quota was set at 11.5 million, and armed food detachments collected it by force, reducing villages to hunger. A combat druzhina Antonov had organized in December 1918 joined local 'Green' partisans, and the revolt spread across the province; in November 1920 an unified partisan army and Main Operational Staff were formed, with Antonov as chief of staff. The uprising's political organization was the Union of Working Peasantry (STK), ideologically led by the SR Ivan Ishin. Its program called for overthrowing the Bolshevik dictatorship, convoking a Constituent Assembly, the full implementation of land socialization, political equality, food supply through cooperatives, and partial denationalization of factories. By early 1921 the rebel army had grown to some 50,000 fighters in roughly twenty regiments under three armies, controlling most of Tambov province. Suppression was entrusted to Tukhachevsky in April 1921, who issued Order 171 prescribing the execution of hostages and their families and Order 0116 ordering poison gas against partisans sheltering in the forests, followed by concentration camps and the burning of villages. The uprising was crushed in the summer of 1921, with studies estimating a total population loss of around 240,000. Alongside the Kronstadt uprising, the event became a decisive spur for the Bolsheviks to abandon War Communism and turn to the New Economic Policy.