The History of Russian Rebellion

With his "march on Moscow," former close friend of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, made people all over the world once again realize what crazy and sometimes illogical actions people are capable of when they are brought up in a society where basic rights and freedoms are ignored. "God forbid that I should see a Russian rebellion, senseless and merciless," wrote the Russian writer Alexander Pushkin in his novel The Captain's Daughter. He wrote with knowledge of the matter, because imperial history has experienced similar episodes more than once. Some of them radically changed the course of history, some literally brought the state to the brink of survival. Today, official Russian historiography tries to downplay the role and importance of dramatic turning points in Russia's chronology, emphasizing the "unchanging continuity of the thousand-year history of Russian statehood." In fact, Russia's past is largely made up of revolts and turmoil, some of which are worth analyzing. Here, we offer a look back at some of the bloodiest uprisings in Russian history.

Time of Troubles, 1598

The death of Ivan the Terrible, the despotic and cruel founder of the Russian autocracy tradition in the territories of the Moscow Kingdom, marked the beginning of the Time of Troubles. People, tortured by brutal repressions, oprichnina, and the unlimited power of the debauched monarch, broke free from the tyrannical grip and began a merciless struggle with each other.

Since then, the Time of Troubles raged on the territory of the Moscow Kingdom, a continuous series of bloody clashes in the struggle for the tsarist throne between several contenders. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Kremlin was occupied by Vasily Shuisky, who came to the throne after the assassination of the previous Tsar Dimitri, better known as False Dmitry I.

Ivan Bolotnikov's Rebellion (1606-1607)

Ivan Bolotnikov was a combat (military) servant of Prince Telyatevsky. After escaping from him to the Don Cossacks, he was captured by Crimean Tatars and sold into slavery on a Turkish galley. After the Turkish fleet was defeated by German ships, Bolotnikov ended up in Venice, from where he traveled through Germany and Poland to Putivl as the governor of the so-called False Dmitry.

In the summer of 1606, against the backdrop of conflicts between the enslaved peasants and the landlords, deep splits within the feudal class itself, and the beginning of the Polish invasion, an uprising began. Led by Ivan Bolotnikov, groups of peasants, supported by nobles, mercenaries, and Cossacks, marched on Moscow. In August and October, Bolotnikov's group defeated government troops several times, and in November began a siege of Moscow. However, they failed to capture the capital, and in the summer of the following year Bolotnikov's troops were defeated and he was taken prisoner.

The Salt Roit, 1648

The government of Boyar Boris Morozov, brother-in-law of Tsar Alexei Romanov, was never popular. People suffered from corruption and arbitrariness of officials. They finally lost their patience when taxes were imposed on basic products, including salt, without which it was impossible to preserve food. This caused a rebellion among the subjects of the Moscow Kingdom. A delegation sent to the tsar on June 11, 1648, was dispersed by riflemen. The next day, the unrest escalated into a riot, and Moscow was "in turmoil." The Riflemen sided with the outraged.

The government paid the riflemen double, split the ranks of the protesters, and carried out massive brutal repressions. The leaders and participants of the uprising were executed. In response, the rebels set fire to the White City and Kitay-Gorod, and smashed the courtyards of the most hated boyars, okolnichys, popes, and merchants. The crowd lynched the head of the Zemsky Prikaz, Leonty Pleshcheyev, and the Duma clerk Nazariy Chisty, who had proposed the salt tax. Morozov was removed from power and sent into exile to the Cyril and Methodius Monastery. The unrest continued until February 1649, until the Tsar made concessions.

The Copper Riot, 1662

In 1654, the exhausting Polish-Russian War began, triggered by Bohdan Khmelnytsky's revolution. The Moscow tsars were short of money, and the government of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich decided to issue copper coins instead of silver, which resulted in rampant inflation and total poverty.

In July 1662, a crowd of Muscovites broke through to Kolomenskoye, where the tsar's residence was located. The people demanded reprisals against the initiators of the reform. The rebellion was drowned in blood, but a year later the minting of copper coins stopped.

Bulavin Rebellion (1707-1708)

In 1700, the Great Northern War began. The peasants' serfdom was strengthened following the serfs trying to escape from the oppression and fleeing to the Don. In July 1707, raids began to find these fugitives in breach of the ancient principle that there was no extradition from the Don. In response, organized groups of Cossacks, led by the centurion Kondratii Bulavin, began to destroy the pursuers.

The following year, the Don and Zaporizhzhia Cossacks fought against the tsarist troops on the territory from Azov to Saratov, but were defeated everywhere.

Pugachev's Rebellion (1773-1775)

Since 1769, Moscow has been at war concurrently with Poland and the Ottoman Empire. The pressure on the rights and freedoms of the Ural Cossacks, the serfdom of the peasants, the oppression of the indigenous peoples of the Volga region, and finally the rumor of the miraculous rescue of Emperor Peter III, who had been murdered by his wife Catherine II, provoked the uprising of Emelyan Pugachev, who decided to impersonate Peter.

The uprising quickly escalated into a full-fledged civil war. In 1774, the third largest city in the empire, Kazan, was captured. However, after peace was concluded with Turkey, regular tsarist troops marched to the Volga, and the Pugachev's Rebellion was defeated.

Revolution of 1905

In 1904, Russia started a war with Japan. During the year and a half of confrontation, the empire suffered a number of humiliating defeats on land, and in 1905 lost its fleet in Tsushima.

On January 9, 1904, a peaceful demonstration was shot at in St. Petersburg. The so-called "Bloody Sunday" was followed by strikes across the country, and street fighting broke out in Moscow. A few months later, Emperor Nicholas II was forced to introduce a parliament, the Duma, in Russia. This was perceived by the protesters as a step forward. However, as early as 1907, most of the rights won by the citizens were abolished.

Revolution of 1917

The First World War, which Russia entered in 1914, quickly exhausted the country leading to lack of ammunition, enormous losses at the front, hunger riots in the rear... Once food was scarce in the capital, the revolution began.

In February, generals who considered Nicholas II to be the main cause of the war's failures forced the tsar to abdicate. However, the Provisional Government was unable to control the situation. Under the influence of Bolshevik propaganda, soldiers, predominantly peasants, began to flee the front, often killing their officers.

In October, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government, as elections to the Constituent Assembly brought victory to their rivals, the Socialist-Revolutionaries.

The October 25 (November 7) coup led to the collapse of the Tsarist army, the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, and, ultimately, the final change in the socio-political system. The Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets proclaimed Soviet rule.

More dramatic and bloody events awaited Russia in the future: the Left SR Uprising (1918), the Sorokin's Mutiny (1918), the anti-Bolshevik uprising in the Tambov region called Antonovschina (1920-1921), and the Kronstadt rebellion, when sailors of the Baltic Fleet rose up against "war communism."

Ultimately, the riots and uprisings ceased, giving way to the all-encompassing repressive totalitarian machine of the Red Terror.

A century later, in the summer of 2023, the leader of the PMC Wagner terrorist organization, Yevgeny Prigozhin, seems to have resumed the tradition of Russian rebellions. Although Putin's march looked more like a military parade than a real uprising, for many in the world and in Russia itself, this event signaled the beginning of another dramatic turn in the history of the post-empire, a point that may well mark the beginning of its disintegration.