The Chapan rebellion was one of the largest peasant uprising against the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

during the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. Taking place in March-April 1919, the uprising covered the territory of Syzran, Sengileevsky, Karsunsky districts of Simbirsk and the

Stavropol Stavropol (, ), known as Voroshilovsk from 1935 until 1943, is a city and the administrative centre of Stavropol Krai, in southern Russia. As of the 2021 Census, its population was 547,820, making it one of Russia's fastest growing cities. E ...

and Melekessky districts of

Samara Samara, formerly known as Kuybyshev (1935–1991), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast in Russia. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with a population of over 1.14 ...

. It got its name from the clothes of the rebels: the chapan - a winter coat, made of sheepskin, a special robe belted with a sash, a popular clothing among the peasants of the region during cold weather. The uprising was brutally suppressed, and its participants, mostly peasants, were subjected to terror and mass repression.

Background

It was caused by the requisitions of grain and forced levies that the villagers suffered at the hands of the

. At that time the white armies were preparing their advance from the

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

to Ufa,

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and Votkinsk, so the Bolsheviks required all the youth and food for defense. For this they used all possible means, including

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

, and in many cases the requisitions turned into simple assaults, where the soldiers took even products not subject to collection, condemning their victims to hunger. In February 1919 the provincial authorities began to warn of the discomfort caused by these abuses but they were not listened to.

Rebellion

On 3 March, the inhabitants of , in the uyezd of Senguilei of the Samara Governorate, attacked the squad in charge of requisitioning their harvest. Apparently, the managers allowed the gathering of the village in a carnival while doing the requisitions, taking more grain than usually required by the orders, which gave the outraged peasants the opportunity to organize and demand responsibilities. When the villagers learned that the Bolsheviks were calling for reinforcements, the soldiers were disarmed and the officials deposed. The first soldiers sent to quell the movement went over to their side and shot their officers. They soon established a headquarters and the neighboring villages were added. They then set about persecuting the Bolsheviks and members of the Poor Peasant Committees (bodies through which they were governed), leaving the region in charge of

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

s without Bolshevik representation. When the authorities in Simbirsk found out on the afternoon of 5 March they ordered the immediate end of the movement and promised to send a committee to study the situation. Two days later, a delegation from the local

Cheka The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə, links=yes), ...

issued an ultimatum demanding submission under penalty of harsh punishment. Despite their poor weapons and little training, on 7 March the rebels captured

with the proclamation "All power to the workers! Down with the rule of the Bolsheviks!" and with hardly any fighting. They named the veteran lieutenant of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, , as their leader, they published appeals, news and orders in the local newspaper, removed all Bolshevik iconography from public places, and began to make plans to seize the

governorate A governorate or governate is an administrative division headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either states or provinces, the term ''governorate'' is typically used to calque divisions ...

s of

and Simbirsk. That same day, the commander of the 4th Red Army, Valerian Kuybyshev, was put in charge of suppressing the revolt. Their plans were simple, to recover Stavropol, where the peasant leaders were, without fighting major battles. It was decided to send the '' komandarm''

Mikhail Frunze Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze (; ; 2 February 1885 – 31 October 1925) was a Soviet revolutionary, politician, army officer and military theory, military theorist. Born to a Bessarabian father and a Russian mother in Russian Turkestan, Frunze at ...

with 13,000 soldiers to crush the movement. They consisted of units withdrawn from the front, the 1st Samara Workers' Regiment and the 2nd International Company, formed by

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, both units were armed with modern rifles and machine guns. They were reinforced with units of the 4th Army. However, the region was restless and on 9 March the reserve regiment stationed in Samara mutinied. The following day, there was a

state of siege ''State of Siege'' () is a 1972 French–Italian–West German political thriller film directed by Costa-Gavras starring Yves Montand and Renato Salvatori. The story is based on an actual incident in 1970, when U.S. official Dan Mitrione was k ...

in Syzran as peasants in the area rose up, destroying

volost Volost (; ; ) was a traditional administrative subdivision in Kievan Rus', the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and the Russian Empire. History The '' Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary'' (1890–1907) states that the origins of the concept is unc ...

offices, burning documents and property and killing local Bolsheviks. Soon every Bolshevik or sympathizer in the region was hunted down and the imprisoned soldiers began to be tortured by submerging them in the icy waters of the Volga. Within two weeks the movement spread through both governorates. Soon much of the Volga basin was in their hands. It was the first ''vosstaniye'' or great peasant rebellion that mobilized huge armies, conquered cities and had a coherent political program. The rebels demanded the abolition of requisitions, the free election of the

s and the end of the " Bolshevik commissarocracy". They came to have an army of thirty thousand men (although some historians raise the figure to one hundred or one hundred and fifty thousand).

Suppression

On 13 March, the Syzransky Revolutionary Committee decreed the execution of all those involved in the insurrection. That same day, the units of the local Cheka and special units attacked Stavropol relying on cavalry and two machine guns, but were repulsed and many civilians fled to Syzran. A military detachment and members of the ''

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

'' led by Alexandra Smirnitskaya were also dispatched to take the village of Usinskoye, but were annihilated. Smirnitskaya, who was acting as a medical assistant, was killed with a club and by a stake driven through the throat. In the vicinity of the village of Eremkino, the rebels were commanded by Irina Felichkina, a veteran of a battalion of defenders of

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, mounted and with a whip giving orders until she was captured and shot. The next day, the army surrounded Stavropol and assaulted it, meeting little resistance because the rebels were poorly organized and dispersed. A few managed to break through the encirclement and flee to the town of Yagodnoye; the rest fell to enemy fire and others were captured. The officers were summarily shot or hanged. Novodeviche fell on 15 March. By early April the revolt had been defeated, but the rebels were able to briefly seize the Bazarnaya train station, destroying the rails. The fighting ended in the middle of the month.

Consequences

Villages were burned, there were mass arrests of peasants, a policy of executing one in ten prisoners was implemented, there were summary trials in Syzran, near which a

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

was built that was soon overcrowded, so they shot the remaining prisoners. In Samara, Frunze dedicated himself to looking for spies and traitors and the leaders of the uprising who were fleeing the persecution. Dolinin managed to hide in the forest until he turned to join the red armies, fighting against

Anton Denikin Anton Ivanovich Denikin (, ; – 7 August 1947) was a Russian military leader who served as the Supreme Ruler of Russia, acting supreme ruler of the Russian State and the commander-in-chief of the White movement–aligned armed forces of Sout ...

and being captured in

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but escaped, then participated in the Polish-Soviet war where he was wounded and in hospital wrote a letter requesting forgiveness from the Central Executive Committee, which granted it, returned to his native village and although he spent several years in prison during the 1930s, he was released and died naturally. This rebellion favored Kolchak's

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

in their advance westward, in fact, his movement agents were officially blamed, and strengthened the military measures led by

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

. It is estimated that it cost the lives of ten thousand peasants. A new uprising broke out years later, on 24 January 1921. In the parish of Chuvasko-Sormin ( uyezd of Yadrinskii, in neighboring Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) between five and seven thousand peasants rose up against the requisitions, attacking the local police; but their uprising was crushed just three days later. The participants of these revolts were not rehabilitated until 1996 by decree of the Russian president

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to ...

References

Bibliography