Kerensky–Krasnov uprising
Template:Short description Template:Infobox military conflict The Kerensky–Krasnov uprising was an attempt by Alexander Kerensky to crush the October Revolution and regain power after the Bolsheviks overthrew his government in Petrograd. It took place between Template:OldStyleDateNY.
Following the October Revolution, Kerensky fled Petrograd, which fell to the Bolshevik-controlled Petrograd Soviet and went to Pskov, the headquarters of the Northern Front command. He did not get the support of its commander, General Vladimir Cheremisov, who prevented his attempts to gather units to march on Petrograd, but he did get the support of General Pyotr Krasnov, who advanced on the capital with about 700 Cossacks. In Petrograd, opponents of the October Revolution were preparing a revolt that would coincide with the attack on the city by Kerensky's forces.
The Soviets had to improvise the defense of the hills south of the city and wait for the attack of Kerensky's troops, who, despite the efforts of the high command, received no reinforcements. The clash in the Pulkovo Heights ended with the withdrawal of the Cossacks after the Junker mutiny, which failed prematurely, and they did not receive the necessary support from other units to force the defences. Talks between the sides ended with Kerensky's flight, fearful of being handed over to the Soviets by his own soldiers, effectively ending attempts to restore the overthrown Russian Provisional Government.
Background
Alexander Kerensky, who had left Petrograd during the October Revolution,Template:Sfn looked for troops that might come to the capital, but did not find them until he arrived to Pskov,Template:Sfn where he arrived around 9 pm on Template:OldStyleDateNY.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the first town with troops near the capital, Gatchina, the soldiers were pro-Bolshevik, and Kerensky narrowly escaped arrest.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
In Pskov was the headquarters of the Northern Front under the command of General Cheremisov;Template:Sfn there Kerensky came into contact with General Pyotr Krasnov, commander of the 3rd Cavalry Corps, which participated in the Kornilov putsch.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Together they gathered a Corps to march over the capital, despite the doubts of his commissar, who was suspicious of the reliability of some troops who were hostile to Kerensky.Template:Sfn Krasnov, a monarchist officer, was not a great a supporter of Kerensky, but believed his claim that the majority of the army would support him against the Bolsheviks.Template:Sfn
In turn, Cheremisov, whose troops were effectively under Bolshevik control and who had bad relations with Kerensky, had rescindedTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn the orders to help the Provisional Government by sending him to Petrograd.Template:Sfn Upon his arrival, I had informed him that he could not guarantee his safety if he remained in the city and that he had to leave immediately.Template:Sfn Cheremisov refused to help the former prime minister.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The local Military Revolutionary Committee controlled communications and transport and monitored the actions of the commanders.Template:Sfn Cheremisov had also obstructed Kerensky's communications with the others. commanders of the front and communicated to the high command his appointment as commander-in-chief and the order to stop the march of troops on the capital, both false reports.Template:Sfn
Military operations
On the night of Template:OldStyleDateNY, Kerensky was again on the outskirts of the capital with little over six hundred CossacksTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn — twelve and a half squads of sixty men,Template:Sfn forming two regiments of the 1st Don Cossack DivisionTemplate:Sfn — some cannons,Template:Sfn an armored convoy and an armored car.Template:Sfn The dispersion of the III Corps and the lack of support for Kerensky among the troops prevented the assembly of larger forces,Template:Sfn and only those that were stationed in Ostrov marched towards the capital.Template:Sfn Krasnov, however, was confident that his cossack troops would receive reinforcements.Template:Sfn The few Cossacks crossed Pskov by train at full speed to avoid clashes with the troops occupying the station and continued towards Gatchina.Template:Sfn
The next morning,Template:Sfn troops took GatchinaTemplate:Sfn without encountering resistance and prepared to assault the Bolshevik positionsTemplate:Sfn while awaiting reinforcements.Template:Sfn Various circumstances, however, prevented the arrival of new forces to Kerensky: the neutrality of many officers in the conflict, such as the commander of the Northern Front, General Cheremisov, the refusal of the majority of the army to fight, the growing influence of the Bolsheviks in the troops and the reluctance of railway workers to collaborate in the operation.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Cheremisov, with bad relations with Kerensky due to a previous personal offense, had ordered that none troops were sent to the capital the day before, declaring that the army should not mix in politics.Template:Sfn Kerensky received only reinforcements from an armored convoy and a regiment from Luga.Template:Sfn In Gatchina, only a few officers from the aviation school joined Krasnov's Cossacks; contributed a couple of planes and an armored car and dropped leaflets over the capital.Template:Sfn After midnight on Template:OldStyleDateNY, small forces, whose size was exaggerated by the government of Lenin who believed they were much larger, took the Tsarskoye Selo.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Here the first fight took place; Krasnov, however, drove out the Red Guards with his light artillery.Template:Sfn His advance, however, was slowTemplate:Sfn due to lack of reinforcements,Template:Sfn especially infantry.Template:Sfn At Tsarskoye Selo, the great garrison — sixteen thousand men — who outnumbered Krasnov's forces twenty to one, declared his neutralityTemplate:Sfn in the confrontation.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In turn, the Bolshevik Revolutionary Military Committee prepared to defend the capital and sent forward the best troops it had in Petrograd.Template:Sfn Red Guards, civilians and sailorsTemplate:Sfn joined the garrison units that departed south of the city to mount defenses.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The command has been placed in the hands of Colonel Muraviov,Template:Sfn to whom Chudnovsky was attached as a commissioner; Trotsky and Pavel Dybenko accompanied them to supervise the operation.Template:Sfn
Meanwhile, in Petrograd, ex-ministers Mensheviks encouraged officials to oppose the new Bolshevik government, the Sovnarkom, through strikes, and supporters of the old government, coordinated by the Committee for the Salvation of the Homeland and Revolution, controlled by the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR), planned a revolt simultaneously with Kerensky's impending attack.Template:Sfn The presidency of the dissolved Preparliament called for a revolt against the Lenin government.Template:Sfn The chief military commissar of the deposed Provisional Government, Stankevich, left to meetTemplate:Sfn with Kerensky in Gatchina to coordinate the revolt in the city and the advance of Kerensky's troops.Template:Sfn
After the failure of the junker mutiny in Petrograd, which had to be precipitated when it was discovered, some members of the PSR Central Committee joined Kerensky after fleeing the capital.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Krasnov's troops made no attempt to help the rebels in the capital.Template:Sfn Avram Gots supported the search for infantry to reinforce the Cossacks on their march on the capital, both at the front and in the garrisons around the city, which had thousands of soldiers.Template:Sfn At the front, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries predominated in the unit committees, but not among the soldiers, who were increasingly close to the Bolsheviks.Template:Sfn The army closest to the capital, the 12th, belonging to the Northern Front and with two pro-Bolshevik Latvian divisions selected, elected its council, which turned out to consist of supporters and opponents of the October Revolution; the few units sent to the capital refused to advance beyond Valka.Template:Sfn The other two armies on the Northern Front, the 1st and 5th. º, were even more pro-Bolshevik and opposed to Kerensky's support.Template:Sfn For their part, the Gatchina and Tsarskoye Selo garrisons had declared themselves neutral and did not support the attack by Kerensky to the capital.Template:Sfn In the end, various efforts to obtain more troops, either from the front or from the nearby garrisons, proved fruitless.Template:Sfn
On Template:OldStyleDateNY, 1917, faced with reports of excesses in the capital after the crushing the revolt of the cadets, tried to advance from the Tsarskoye Selo against the entrenched Bolshevik forces, which were twenty times as numerous.Template:Sfn Despite advancing easily against the Red Guards, the Cossacks found themselves in danger of being attacked on their flanksTemplate:Sfn by the marinesTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn commanded by Dybenko.Template:Sfn The Cossacks were repulsed Template:Sfn in the Pulkovo Heights and had to evacuate Tsarskoye Selo and return to Gatchina to avoid being surrounded.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn The confrontation had been messy and bloody.Template:Sfn The forces of Kerensky began to disperse in retreat and some of them fraternized with the Bolsheviks in hopes of returning home.Template:Sfn Lack of support had sapped the morale of Kerensky's few Cossack troops.Template:Sfn
By Template:OldStyleDateNY, the situation had deteriorated to the point that Kerensky was in danger of being arrested by his own men and handed over to the Bolsheviks; the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party forced him to flee dressed Template:Sfn as a sailor.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Kerensky's escape ended hopes of restoring the Provisional Government;Template:Sfn after that the opponents of the October Revolution did not try to revive it, but to create a new alternative government to the Bolsheviks.Template:Sfn The defeat of Kerensky, together with the Bolshevik victory in the heavy fighting in Moscow, temporarily secured the power of Lenin and his supporters;Template:Sfn the capital was temporarily safe from military attack.Template:Sfn
In turn, Krasnov was captured, but soon released after promising not to fight the Soviet authorities, a promise he quickly brokeTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn by becoming the leader of an anti-Bolshevik movement — the Don Republic.Template:Sfn