The Kronstadt rebellion (Russian: Кронштадтское восстание, tr. Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a major unsuccessful uprising against the Bolsheviks in the later years of the Russian Civil War. Led by Stepan Petrichenko and consisting of Russian sailors, soldiers and civilians, the rebellion was one of the reasons for Vladimir Lenin’s and the Communist Party’s decision to loosen its control of the Russian economy by implementing the New Economic Policy (NEP).

The rebellion originated in Kronstadt, a naval fortress on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland that served as the base of the Russian Baltic Fleet and as a guardpost for the approaches to Petrograd, 55 kilometres away.

Source: Wikipedia, published under the GNU FDL. Retrieved 2013-08-14