Tambov Rebellion

Tambov Rebellion
Part of the Russian Civil War
Date 19 August 1920 – mid 1922 Location Tambov Governorate, Russian SFSR 52°30′N 41°48′E / 52.5°N 41.8°E / 52.5; 41.8 Result Bolshevik victory
Belligerents
Green armies	Soviet Russia
Commanders and leaders
Alexander Antonov † Peter Tokmakov [ru] † Ivan Ishin [ru]	Mikhail Tukhachevsky V. Antonov-Ovseyenko Alexander Schlichter Ieronim Uborevich Grigory Kotovsky Sergey Kamenev
Strength
Probably 20,000 regular and 20,000 militiamen[1] 14,000 (August 1920)[2] 50,000 (October 1920)[3] 40,000[4] – 70,000[5] (February 1921) 1,000 (September 1921)[4]	5,000 (November 1920)[3] 50,000[6] – 100,000[7] (March 1921)[8]
Casualties and losses
50,000 civilians interned in camps[9] 15,000 dead[10][page needed]

The Tambov Rebellion of 1920–1922 was one of the largest and best-organized peasant rebellions challenging the Bolshevik government during the Russian Civil War.^[11] The uprising took place in the territories of the modern Tambov Oblast and part of the Voronezh Oblast, less than 500 kilometres (300 mi) southeast of Moscow.

In Soviet historiography, the rebellion was referred to as the Antonovschina ("Antonov's mutiny"), so named after Alexander Antonov, a former official of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, who opposed the government of the Bolsheviks. It began in August 1920 with resistance to the forced confiscation of grain and developed into a guerrilla war against the Red Army, Cheka units and the Soviet Russian authorities. The bulk of the peasant army was destroyed by large Red Army reinforcements using chemical weapons in the summer of 1921;^[7] smaller groups continued resistance until the following year. It is estimated that around 100,000 people were arrested and around 15,000 killed during the suppression of the uprising.

The movement was later portrayed by the Soviets as anarchical banditry, similar to other left-wing anti-Bolshevik movements that opposed them during this period.