The state hardens
1920–21
Tambov, and the order to use poison gas
A peasant war was crushed with hostages, camps, and a written order to gas forests.
In Tambov province, Alexander Antonov’s peasant rebels fought grain requisition. Tukhachevsky was sent to finish it. His orders included taking hostages from villages, shooting them if arms were not surrendered, and emptying rebel areas into camps.
Order No. 0116 of 12 June 1921 authorized the use of chemical weapons against bandits hiding in forests. The document is archival. How many people died specifically from gas, as opposed to shooting, hunger, and camps, is harder. The intention to use asphyxiating gas against a rural population is not hard. The rising, and the Volga famine, pushed Lenin to replace requisition with a tax: the NEP. The ban on any other party stayed.
Where to check it · Tukhachevsky order 0116, published from Russian archives; studies of the Antonovshchina by Soviet and post-Soviet historians.