Poster - Remember the 1921 Kronstadt Uprising

In March 1921, the sailors, soldiers and civilians at the Kronstadt Naval Base (which had been at the forefront of the 1905 and October Revolutions) put forward a fifteen point plan aimed at reducing Bolshevik control of the state and the soviets, economic freedom for peasants and workers, freedom of speech and assembly, and fair shares in food distribution. The uprising was brutally suppressed by Trotsky's Red Army, amid claims that the Naval Base was a dangerous mutiny, in league with White counter revolutionaries.

This design is taken from an original poster by Vladimir Kozlinsky called: "Long Live the Vanguard of the Revolution, The Red Fleet" produced in 1920 (ie before the uprising).

Our poster is an A3 size (approx. 11.7" x 16.5") digitally cleaned up print of the original, printed on good quality 170gm poster paper by the Radical Poster Collective, UK

The Radical Poster Collective is dedicated to making good quality classic radical posters available at an affordable price. Posters are either digitally cleaned up to remove tears, stains, etc., or completely recreated to be as close as possible to the original.

For further historical context before and after the Kronstadt Uprising see below:

In 1917, after three years of devastating war, food shortages and government corruption, the workers and peasants of Russia rose up to overthrow the ruling elite and attempted to create the world’s first communist society under the slogan “All Power to the Soviets”. Throughout the year there were riots, mutinies and strikes, influenced by and involving Mensheviks, Anarchists, Social Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks.

By October, the Bolsheviks, who promised to end Russia’s involvement in the war, were able to overthrow the provisional government, which had been established after the abdication of the Tsar in February. As the Bolsheviks centralised power and tightened their control over the new state, civil war broke out across Russia as monarchists and liberals (known as the Whites), supported by Western capitalist democracies, fought back against the Bolsheviks. At the same time, various non-Russian independence movements, anarchists and anti-Bolshevik socialist parties also rebelled against Bolshevik imposed terror.

By 1923 the Bolsheviks had defeated the White Army and suppressed internal dissent. The Civil War concluded with a Bolshevik victory. Before the Revolution and throughout the period of the existence of the Soviet Union, visual propaganda was considered a significant means to inform, educate and motivate people.