Lenin’s Forgotten War in Tambov

Ian Johnson | Nov 16, 2016

At the height of the Russian Civil War in 1919, famine coupled with Red Army brutality provoked peasants in the Volga Region’s Tambov province to rebel. By the end of the Civil War in 1920, “the peasant rebellion had swollen to at least fifty thousand guerillas in arms, many of them Red Army deserters.”  Dr. Johnson explores the brutal treatment of the rebellious peasants by Lenin’s government, concluding that “more than 240,000 men, women, and children were killed or executed by the Red Army during the course of the Tambov rebellion.”

He reminds readers “as we approach the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution, we must remember Lenin’s victims in Tambov province, forerunners of many millions more.”

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Image: Victims of Communism blog