KRONSHTADT 1921. Episode 2. English Subtitles. Russian History.

The Great Russian Empire was on the brink of collapse. Stunning news swept swiftly around the word on 3 March 1917 - REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA! The Kronstadt sailors were the main participants of the Bolshevik coup during the Russian Revolution, taking control of the capital, Petrograd in October 1917 and holding it until the new government came to power after an overwhelming victory. In Kronstadt itself the sailors had shot many of the Tsar’s most important naval and military figures - admirals, ships’ commanders, captains and midshipmen. Later it was the sailors who also provided the main support of the Bolshevik government when it seized power. The sailors’ black pea-jackets came to be regarded as a fearsome deterrent in Petrograd and eventually throughout all Russia. Four years were to pass before the sailors of the Baltic Fleet realized that the workers’ and peasants’ power, for which they had struggled so fiercely and which had been promised by the Bolsheviks, was never received. Thus in