“By 1921 the Kronstadt garrison consisted mostly of new peasant recruits who had replaced the revolutionary sailors of 1917.”

Context. The claim was made by Trotsky and Soviet historians. Getzler stresses continuity in personnel, ideology and institutions between Kronstadt's soviet democracy of 1917–1918 and the 1921 rising; Mawdsley's study of the Baltic Fleet also challenges the replacement thesis.