In 1924, when he stood trial before a Soviet court, Savinkov claimed he had received from the French a firm commitment that if his men managed to hold out for four days, they would be relieved by an Allied force from Archangel, following which the combined Franco-Anglo-Russian army would advance on Moscow. Without such a promise, he said, his uprising made no sense.154 He further claimed that Consul Grenard gave him a cable from Noulens that the Allied landings would take place between July 3 and 8 and that it was essential for him to move during that time.155 According to the testimony he gave at his trial, he coordinated all activities with the French mission.
Unfortunately, one can never take Savinkov’s statements at face value, not only because as an experienced conspirator he rarely told the full truth but also because he was quite capable of telling outright lies. Thus, at one time he claimed credit for Fannie Kaplan’s attempt on Lenin’s life (see below, this page), with which he is known to have had no connection; he also stated that in July 1918 he had acted on orders of the Moscow National Center, which happens to be untrue as well.156 The Bolsheviks liked to link all resistance to them with foreign conspiracies to incite native xenophobia. It is almost certain that after his arrest in Soviet Russia in 1924, Savinkov struck a deal with the Bolshevik prosecutor to place the blame for his abortive coup of 1918 on the French, for now that the Allied archives for the period have been made available to scholars, no evidence has come to light to support this allegation. If the French mission indeed had not only authorized him to stage an anti-Bolshevik rebellion but demanded it, as he alleged, and further promised to help him capture Moscow, such an enterprise would certainly have left documentary evidence. Since none exists, one must conclude that Savinkov lied, perhaps in the hope of saving his life. As we have noted, Savinkov’s main liaison with the French, Grenard, attested that he acted “on his own.”*
Savinkov chose as the principal locus of his uprising Iaroslavl, and this for two reasons. One was the city’s strategic location, on the railroad linking Archangel with Moscow, which facilitated both offensive and defensive operations. The other had to do with the fact that Perkhurov, whom Savinkov had sent to reconnoiter, brought from Iaroslavl encouraging reports of popular support.157
The final operational plans were drawn up at the end of June, when the Czech uprising was at its height. Perkhurov, who was to command the Iaroslavl operation, had barely ten days to organize. Savinkov undertook personally to direct a secondary uprising in nearby Rybinsk; a third action was scheduled at Murom, on the Moscow-Kazan railroad. Savinkov is said by Perkhurov to have told his officers that he had firm promises of Allied assistance from Archangel, and that if they managed to hold out for four days, they would be relieved.158
Savinkov scheduled the Iaroslavl rising for the night of July 5–6, which preceded only by hours the time at which the Left SRs staged their rebellion. The coincidence notwithstanding, there is nothing to indicate that the two events had been coordinated. The Left SRs and Savinkov pursued entirely different aims, the former intending to leave the Bolsheviks in power, while Savinkov intended to overthrow them. Furthermore, it is inconceivable that the Left SRs would have had any dealings with a representative of the “counterrevolutionary” generals. Had he known of their plans, Savinkov would surely have followed his first inclination and staged a coup in Moscow rather than in Iaroslavl. This lack of coordination, about which Lenin spoke to Mirbach, was typical of the anti-Bolshevik opposition and a major reason for its ultimate failure.
To confuse the enemy and force him to scatter his forces, Savinkov and Perkhurov scheduled their rebellions at staggered times, with the Rybinsk operations to commence during the night of July 7–8 and the one at Murom the following night.
Perkhurov, who despite having little time had prepared the Iaroslavl rebellion with great precision, caught the Bolshevik authorities completely by surprise.159 The action began at 2 a.m. on July 6, when a detachment of officers seized key points in the city: the arsenal, militia headquarters, the bank, and the post office. Another detachment proceeded to arrest leading Bolshevik and soviet officials, some of whom it is said to have shot. Officers employed as instructors in a local Red Army school promptly sided with the rebels, bringing along several machine guns and an armored car. Perkhurov proclaimed himself commander of the Iaroslavl Branch of the Northern Volunteer Army. These initial operations met with almost no resistance, and by daybreak the center of the city was in rebel hands. Soon others went over to the rebels, among them members of the militia, students, workers, and peasants: a Communist historian estimates that of the 6,000 participants in the Iaroslavl uprising, only 1,000 or so were officers.160 It was a genuine popular rebellion against the Bolshevik regime, in which the peasants from the nearby villages proved especially helpful. The rebels tried to enlist for their cause German POWs who happened to have been passing through Iaroslavl en route home, but they met with refusal, following which they interned the Germans in the city theater. On July 8 Perkhurov informed them that his forces considered themselves at war with the Central Powers.161
Whereas the Murom and Rybinsk uprisings, each involving 300–400 men, collapsed in a matter of hours, Perkhurov held out for sixteen days. The pro-Bolshevik forces, gathered in the suburbs, counterattacked the following night, but failed to recapture the city. They then subjected it to intense artillery bombardment, which destroyed the water supply, with disastrous consequences for the rebels because the Reds controlled access to the Volga River, the only alternative source. After a week or so of inconclusive fighting, Trotsky placed in charge of the Iaroslavl operation A. I. Gekker, an ex-captain of the Imperial Army who had gone over to the Bolsheviks on the eve of the October coup. Gekker attacked the city with infantry, artillery, and airplanes. In the heavy shelling, most of the city, with its celebrated medieval churches and monasteries, was gutted.162 The rebels, so short of water they scooped it up from gutters, finally had to give up. On July 20, their representatives approached the German Repatriation Commission and declared they wished to surrender: since they were at war with Germany, they expected to be treated as prisoners of war. The head of the German commission accepted these terms and promised not to turn the rebels over to the Red Army. On July 21, the rebels laid down their arms and for a few hours Iaroslavl was under the occupation of German POWs. That evening, however, confronted with an ultimatum from the Bolsheviks, the Germans broke their promise and turned over to them the prisoners. The Red Guards sorted out some 350 officers, ex-officials, affluent citizens, and students, marched them out of town and had them shot.163 It was the first mass execution by the Bolsheviks. One consequence of the Iaroslavl uprising was that Moscow ordered indiscriminate arrests of former Imperial officers: many of them were shot without a trial even as others were being inducted into the Red Army.