On 17 March 1921 some 50,000 crack Red Army troops stormed the naval fortress of Kronstadt and massacred thousands of sailors and soldiers who had dared to challenge
Communist rule. Survivors were sent to their deaths in concentration camps and no trial was ever held.
Sixty years after the revolt Leonard Schapfro, Emeritus Professor of Political Science with special reference to
Russian studies at the London School of Economics, re-examines the Kronstadt events and considers what parallels can be drawn with the continuing struggles in the Soviet bloc for freedom under
Communist rule.