Information on Emelian Pugachev

[AnarchistPatriot]

I have an interest in the Great Cossack Revolutionary and Freedom Fighter, Emelian Pugachev who led a desperate but unsuccessful peasant revolt against Catherine II's regeim. My question is what is his status in Russia today.

My understanding is that Lenin acknowledged his contribution to the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. Yet he has been swept under the carpet by modern historians. Is there a monument to him anywhere in Russia today? I do know that the town where he was born was renamed in his honor. What do modern Russians think of him?

[AnarchistPatriot]

I would guess from this response that nobody knows who Pugachev was or cares...

So here is the story.

In 18th Century Russia, peasant serfs were virtual slaves of their masters. They could be beaten, murdered or sold at the auction block.

Catherine II (called Catherine the Great by biased historians, but I have a different opinion than that) was a German nobelwomen who married the Czar of Russia, Peter III, a gentle and kind man. Had him murdered by her lovers (she was a slut who had many affairs) and took the throne. At first paid lip service to making things better. She founded schools for the aristocracy, she brought western culture to the aristocracy, and continued Peter the Greats oppression of native Russian culture by banning beards. She also reintroduced the death penalty to Russia and continued to allow oppression of serfs. This all inspite of her claiming to be a child of the enlightment (she read Voltair and wrote to him). As a side note, she also murdered the only other claiment to the throne, the deposed emporer Ivan who lived all his life in prison.

Pugachev was a Cossak soldier from the Urals who claimed to be Peter III. To be sure it was a proposterous claim. Yet to most peasants, they were willing to use any pretext to rebell. Also, in able to make his rebellion possible it was necessary to make such a claim. After all Russia has a long tradition of installing fraudulent rulers to the throne... such as the "False Dimitri" who was actually a peasant who led a rebellion of serfs to seize the throne.

The new Cossak "Czar" Proclaimed liberty for all serfs, abolished compulsory military serviced and religious freedom for all non Orthodox peoples.

Pugachev joined with Bashkirs, Cossaks, Peasant serfs, prisoners, common criminals, deserting soldiers and even a small number of Polish nationalists and moved towards Moscow. They proved to be remarkably effective. They took cities such as Kazan, which was later burned as government troops followed.

The mistake made by Pugachev was that after leaving Novi Novagrad, turned south instead of marching on Moscow, where they had great support among common people of the city. Then then went on retreat. Yet as they retreated and took the cities of the Volga, their numbers grew.

But Pugachev's fortunes changed at Cherny Yar. The vicious young general Mikhelson defeated his forces and sent the small force into retreat across the Volga while butchering the survivors.

But in the end Pugachev's own fellow cossaks betrayed him and handed him over to the Government authorities. After giving a valient defense of his actions and showind defiance he was beheaded in front of a crowd in Moscow. Throughout Russia, savage repression followed.

So shocking was the rebellion to the system that Catherine never again spoke of reform and turned increasingly despotic. When a nobleman by the name of Radishev published an honest account of life in the villages "Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg" he was arrested and sentenced to death, later commuted to life in prison. Thus Catherine joined the ranks of the most repressive Czars in Russian History.

It was not until Alexander II that the serfs of Russia were, quite belatedly, given their freedom. It was said that the only reason Alexander had to free the serf population was because the defeat of the Russian serf army in Crimea by French, British and Turkish forces showed that armise of freemen fought better than armies of slaves. It should further be noted that even emancipation did not make life better for the serfs. Many continued to be slaves in fact, bound to the land by debt and forced by cruel "land commissions" to produce and forced to not leave their farms.

Pugachev, Razin and other leaders were acknowledged by the Revolutionaries of the 18th century, from the Decemberists to the Bolshiviks. This is evedent in Lenin's words "I am Stenko Razin".