Lenin's hanging order
During the summer of 1918, many of Russia's central cities, including Moscow and Petrograd, were cut off from the grain-producing regions of Ukraine, northern Caucasus, and Siberia by the civil war.[3][4] Lenin had justified the state response to kulak revolts due to the 258 uprisings that had occurred in 1918 and the threat of the White Terror.[6] A peasant revolt erupted in the Kuchkino Volost of Penzensky Uyezd on 5 August 1918, in opposition to prodrazvyorstka, and soon spread to neighbouring regions.[4] By 8 August 1918, Soviet forces had crushed the revolt, but the situation in the governorate remained tense, and a revolt led by members of Socialist Revolutionary Party erupted in the town of Chembar on 18 August.Lenin sent several telegrams to Penza demanding harsher measures in fighting these kulak, kulak-supporting peasants and Left SR insurrectionists.