L. I. Goldman, member of the Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, made a report to that body concerning one of these Jaroslav uprisings in which he wrote:
The population of that city consists mainly of workmen. Having the assistance of a military organization under the leadership of General Alexiev and General Savinkov, the laborers of all the plants and factories took part in the uprising. Before the uprising began the leaders declared that they would not allow it unless they had the sympathy of the laborers and other classes. Trotsky sent a message stating that if the revolt could not be quelled he would go as far as having the city of Jaroslav with its 40,000 inhabitants completely destroyed.... Though surrounded by 17,000 Red Guards, Jaroslav resisted, but was finally captured by the Bolsheviki, due to the superiority of their artillery. The uprising was suppressed by bloody and terrible means. The spirit of destruction swayed over Jaroslav, which is one of the oldest Russian cities.
Bearing in mind that the sole aim of the people of Jaroslav—led by Socialist workmen—was to establish their own local self-government, the inviolability of the Soviet elections, let us examine a few of the many reports concerning the struggle published in the official Bolshevist organs. Under the caption “Official Bulletin,” Izvestia published, on July 21, 1918, this item:
At Jaroslav the adversary, gripped in the iron ring of our troops, has tried to enter into negotiations. The reply has been given under the form of redoubled artillery fire.
Four days later, on July 25th, Izvestia published a military proclamation addressed to the inhabitants of Jaroslav, from which the following passage is taken:
The General Staff notifies to the population of Jaroslav that all those who desire to live are invited to abandon the town in the course of twenty-four hours and to meet near the America Bridge. Those who remain will be treated as insurgents, and no quarter will be given to any one. Heavy artillery fire and gas-bombs will be used against them. All those who remain will perish in the ruins of the town with the insurrectionists, the traitors, and the enemies of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Revolution.
On the day following, July 26th, Izvestia published an article to the effect that “after minute questionings and full inquiry” a special commission of inquiry appointed to investigate the Jaroslav insurrection had listed three hundred and fifty persons as having “taken an active part in the insurrection and had relations with the Czechoslovaks,” and that the commissioners had ordered the whole three hundred and fifty to be shot.
Throughout the summer the struggle went on, and in the Severnaya Communa, September 10, 1918, the following despatch from Jaroslav was published:
Jaroslav, 9th September.—In the whole of the Jaroslav government a strict registration of the bourgeoisie and its partizans has been organized. Manifestly anti-Soviet elements are being shot; suspected persons are interned in concentration camps; non-working sections of the population are subjected to forced labor.
Here is further evidence, from official Bolshevist sources, that when the Soviet elections went against them the Bolshevist Government simply dissolved the offending Soviets. Here are two despatches from Izvestia, from the issues of July 28 and August 3, 1918, respectively: