Revolt in Mar 1921 by sailors of the Russian
Baltic Fleet at their headquarters in
Kronstadt, outside Petrograd (now Leningrad).
On the orders of the leading Bolshevik
Trotsky, Red Army troops, dressed in white
camouflage, crossed the ice to the naval base
and captured it on 18 Mar. The leaders were
subsequently shot. Following a strike by
Petrograd workers in Feb 1921, the Kronstadt
sailors reaffirmed their demands for the
rights obtained in theory by the Revolution
of 1917. The sailors were thus labelled the
`conscience of the Revolution' for demanding
what had been promised, but not delivered, by
the Bolsheviks. These perceived them as a
threat because of their detection and
resentment of the growing Bolshevik monopoly
of power.