Tambov Order No. 171
탐보프 명령 제171호
An order issued on 11 June 1921 by the Plenipotentiary Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee that was suppressing the Tambov rebellion, "On the start of repressive measures against individual bandits and the families sheltering them". It prescribed summary execution of citizens who refused to give their names, the shooting of hostages in villages that hid weapons, and the arrest and deportation of families who sheltered insurgents, the confiscation of their property and the execution without trial of the eldest worker of the household. It was signed by the commission's chairman, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, and the commander of the forces, Mikhail Tukhachevsky.
In depth
The order declared that the "decisive struggle against banditry" since 1 June had routed "Antonov's band" and, "in order finally to uproot the SR-bandit roots", laid down seven points. Citizens who refused to give their names were to be shot on the spot without trial; villages hiding weapons were to be sentenced to the taking of hostages, who would be shot if the weapons were not surrendered; where hidden weapons were found, the eldest worker of the family was to be shot on the spot without trial. The family in whose house a bandit had hidden was to be arrested and deported from the province, its property confiscated and its eldest worker shot without trial, and families hiding bandits' relatives or property were to be treated as bandits. If a bandit's family fled, its property was to be shared among peasants loyal to Soviet power and the abandoned houses burned or dismantled; the last point ordered that the order be carried out "severely and mercilessly". It was signed by Antonov-Ovseenko, Tukhachevsky, the chairman of the provincial executive committee Lavrov and the secretary Vasilyev, and was to be read out at village assemblies.
The next day, 12 June, Tukhachevsky and his chief of staff Nikolai Kakurin signed Order No. 0116 to use poison gas against insurgents hiding in the forests. On 23 June the commission's Order No. 116 recommended a "cleansing" method: surround a volost with strong bandit sympathies, take 60–100 prominent residents hostage, read Orders No. 130 and 171 at a volost assembly, and shoot the hostages in front of the population if bandits and weapons were not handed over within two hours. On 27 June 21 of about 40 hostages were shot in the village of Osinovka, and on 3–4 July 36 in Bogoslovka; where threats failed, as in Vtoraya Kareevka with its 65–70 households, the inhabitants were evicted and the village burned. Many children were held in the camps: even after the camps were thinned out in July more than 450 child hostages aged one to ten remained, and on 20 July a separate instruction forbade taking children, pregnant women and women with small children as hostages. The Russian-language source notes that the hostage system enraged the insurgents, who in turn took and shot Red Army soldiers, communists, Soviet employees and their families, and the historian Yulia Kantor estimates that 30,000–50,000 Tambov peasants suffered repression.