[2] Disappointed in the direction of the Bolshevik government, the rebels—whom Leon Trotsky himself had praised earlier as the "adornment and pride of the revolution"—demanded a series of reforms: reduction in Bolshevik power, newly elected soviets (councils) to include socialist and anarchist groups, economic freedom for peasants and workers, dissolution of the bureaucratic governmental organs created during the civil war, and the restoration of civil rights for the working class.

[4] Convinced of the popularity of the reforms they were fighting for (which they partially tried to implement during the revolt), the Kronstadt seamen waited in vain for the support of the population in the rest of the country and rejected aid from the emigres.

[13] The arrival of winter and the maintenance[14] of "war communism" and various deprivations by Bolshevik authorities led to increased tensions in the countryside[15] (as in the Tambov Uprising) and in the cities, especially Moscow and Petrograd—where strikes and demonstrations took place[12]—in early 1921.

[21] When the situation seemed to calm down in Moscow, protests broke out in Petrograd,[22] where about 60% of large factories closed in February due to lack of fuel[23] and food supplies had virtually disappeared.

[26] In late February, a meeting at the small Trubochny factory decided to increase rations and immediately distribute winter clothes and shoes that were reportedly reserved for Bolsheviks.

[41] Displaying a radical support for the Soviets, Kronstadt had taken part in important revolutionary period events such as the July Days,[35] October Revolution, the assassination of the Provisional Government ministers,[35] the Constituent Assembly dissolution, and the civil war.

[54] Fyodor Raskolnikov's appointment as commander in chief in June 1920, aimed at increasing the fleet's ability to act and ending tensions, resulted in failure and the sailors met it with hostility.

[69] In late February, in response to the events in Petrograd,[68] the crews of the ships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol held an emergency meeting and sent a delegation to the city to investigate and inform Kronstadt about the protests.

[87] Although the rebels did not expect a military confrontation with the government, tensions in Kronstadt grew after the arrest and disappearance of a delegation sent by the naval base to Petrograd to investigate the situation of strikes and protests in the city.

[104] The government accused opponents of being French-led counterrevolutionaries and claimed that the Kronstadt rebels were commanded by General Alexander Kozlovsky [ru], the former Tsarist officer then responsible for base artillery,[105] although it was in the hands of the Revolutionary Committee.

[108] Trotsky presented alleged French press articles announcing the revolt two weeks before its outbreak as proof that the rebellion was a plan devised by the emigre and the forces of the Entente.

[109] Despite the intransigence of the government and the willingness of the authorities to crush the revolt by force, many communists supported the sailors' demanded reforms and preferred a negotiated resolution to end the conflict.

[136] Fearful of justifying the Bolshevik's accusations, the rebellion leaders took care to refrain from attacking revolutionary symbols and reject assistance that might relate them in any way to the emigrants or counterrevolutionary forces.

[143] For Lenin, Kronstadt's demands displayed a "semi-anarchist" and "petty-bourgeois" character but, as the concerns of the peasantry and workers reflected, they posed a far greater threat to their government than the White armies.

[144] Such an idea, as popular as it was,[145] according to Lenin, should lead to the disintegration of the country into thousands of separate communes, ending centralized Bolshevik power but, over time, could result in a new, centralist, right-wing regime and thus needed to be suppressed.

[154] Departments and commissariats were abolished, replaced by union delegates' boards, and revolutionary troikas were formed to implement the PRC measures in all factories, institutions, and military units.

[156] The commissioner of Oranienbaum, aware of the facts and fearing the upheaval of his other units, requested Zinoviev's urgent help, armed the local party members, and increased their rations to secure their loyalty.

[158] Despite this setback,[158] the rebels continued their passive stance and rejected the advice of the "military experts"—a euphemism used to designate the tsarist officers employed by the Soviets under the surveillance of the commissars—to attack various points of the continent rather than staying on the island.

[162] On March 4, as delegates returned from the mainland reporting that the Bolsheviks had suppressed the real character of the revolt and instead were spreading news of a White uprising in the naval base, the assembly approved the extension of the PRC and the delivery of weapons to citizens to maintain security in the city and free up soldiers and sailors for the defense of the island.

[165] Zinoviev's Petrograd Defense Committee airdropped a leaflet over Kronstadt accusing the rebellion of being orchestrated by the White Army, ordering their surrender, and threatening that those who resisted would be "shot like partridges".

The Bolsheviks made premature, triumphalist statements of their imminent victory, but their forces had suffered hundreds of casualties and defections due to insufficient preparation, low morale, and the danger of their unprotected approach by ice.

While the Bolsheviks prepared additional troops with less emotional investment (cadet regiments, Communist Youth, Cheka forces, and non-Russians), Zinoviev made concessions to the people of Petrograd to keep the peace.

[174] Trotsky's closed session report to the 10th Party Congress led over a quarter of congressional delegates to volunteer, mainly to boost soldier morale, which was difficult in light of the Bolshevik strategy of sending minor, futile attempts at overtaking the island.

[181] On March 16, as Kronstadt accepted a proposal for Russian Red Cross emergency food and medicine, Tukhachevsky's reinforced army of 50,000 prepared to take the island and its 15,000 rebels.

[182] Compared with prior attempts, the attackers enjoyed better numbers, morale, and leaders,[183] including prominent Bolshevik officers Ivan Fedko, Pavel Dybenko, and Vitovt Putna.

[214] Prior to the rebellion, Lenin recognized a trend of peasant dissatisfaction and feared general revolt during the country's transition, and so conceded that a conciliatory, peasant-focused domestic economic program was more immediately urgent than his ambitions for Western proletariat revolution.

[217] Though the rebellion did not appear decisive or influential at the time, it later symbolized a fork in Russian history that turned away from libertarian socialism and towards bureaucratic repression and what would become Stalinist totalitarianism, the Moscow Trials, and the Great Purge.

For some intellectuals, this was the Kronstadt rebellion itself but for others it was the Holodomor, Moscow Trials, East German uprising, intervention in Hungary, Khrushchev's Secret Speech, the Prague Spring, or the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Broue also disputed the historical assessments by modern historians such as Dmitri Volkogonov in which he argued had falsely equated Stalinism and Trotskyism to present the notion of ideological continuity and reinforce the position of counter-communism.

[233] Rogovin has disputed the idealized representation of the Kronstadt armed rebels and noted the fact they had imprisoned 500 communists and had sentenced Nikolai Kuzmin, the commissar of the Baltic Fleet, to death before the intervention of the Red Army.