The story of the use chemical warfare according to the order of the red commander Tukhachevsky in the suppression of the Tambov uprising is known to all. On June 12 1921 Tukhachevsky signed the order No. 0116 :
"Defeated gangs and individual criminals who escaped from the villages, where the restoration of Soviet power has done, going in the woods and from there make raids on civilians. For immediate clearing of the woods I ORDER: 1. Clean the forests... by poisonous gases, calculate accurately a cloud of gases spread fully throughout the forest, destroying everything in it was hidden".
But according to the documents published today, it becomes clear that the use of chemical weapons in the same Tambov province, was the norm for the leninists. It turns out that poisonous gases were also used by the Bolsheviks against the peasants in the autumn of 1918.
The delegate from Tambov Mikhail Tvelenev told at the Second Council of the Party of left socialists-revolutionaries in Moscow on December 16, 1918. :
"Spontaneous movement [against the Bolsheviks] had taken place... in 40 districts. The movement was suppressed in the strongest possible way: Trotsky sent armored cars and cans of [poisonous] gas. Some villages have been wiped out. Executions cannot be taken into account, they are enormous...
The Soviet government did not enjoy sympathy, as "Cheka", and prisons are overcrowded. 16 left [S.-R.] were shot. The peasants say they will support another power, but not the Bolsheviks. Mass among the working peasantry works on our side."
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This notes of the events of 1918 was first deciphered and published in the collection of documents of Party of the left SR , by ROSSPEN. Moscow. 2017.