During the summer of 1918, many of Russia's central cities, including Moscow and Petrograd, were cut off from the grain-producing regions of Ukraine, northern Caucasus, and Siberia by the civil war.
[3][4] Lenin had justified the state response to kulak revolts due to the 258 uprisings that had occurred in 1918 and the threat of the White Terror.
[6] A peasant revolt erupted in the Kuchkino Volost of Penzensky Uyezd on 5 August 1918, in opposition to prodrazvyorstka, and soon spread to neighbouring regions.
[4] By 8 August 1918, Soviet forces had crushed the revolt, but the situation in the governorate remained tense, and a revolt led by members of Socialist Revolutionary Party erupted in the town of Chembar on 18 August.
Lenin sent several telegrams to Penza demanding harsher measures in fighting these kulak, kulak-supporting peasants and Left SR insurrectionists.