In April 1921, the Revolutionary Military Council appointed Mikhail Tukhachevsky as the commander of troops in the rebellious Tambov province. Upon arriving there on May 12, he immediately issued an order: "All who take up arms against Soviet power will be destroyed. Participants in bandit groups are offered either to perish or to surrender to the mercy of Soviet power. Families of those who evade will be taken hostage, and their property will be confiscated." The document stated that families would be held in a concentration camp for two weeks. If during this time the rebel surrendered, their relatives and property would be released; otherwise, they would be sent north for forced labor.

Tukhachevsky's order was implemented. In May, camps for 15,000 people were built in Kirsanov, Borisoglebsk, and Tambov. The troops began active operations. If weapons were found in a house, the senior worker was shot on the spot. If an Antonovite was hiding in a hut, the family was expelled, property was confiscated, and the senior worker was executed. In the summer, nearly 70,000 people were expelled from the province.

In the village of Ostroukhivka, Red Army soldiers shot 10 hostages; in Aleksandrovka, 16; in Kulyabovka, 23. Fearing for the lives of their loved ones, the fighters of the Peasant Army under Antonov began to surrender. To finally suppress the uprising, Tukhachevsky decided to use chemical shells. Five chemical teams arrived from the capital. Although the exact number of victims from chemical shells is unknown, Tukhachevsky reported to Lenin that the uprising in Tambov province had been eliminated.

The monument to the Tambov peasant was chosen as symbolic because, in the early 1920s, there was a concentration camp here for participants in the peasant war led by Antonov and those suspected of disloyalty to Soviet power.

Shells containing chloropicrin or nitrochloroform, that is, tear gas, were sent to Tambov. Three episodes of chemical shelling were recorded that did not result in casualties. Documented instances of gas shelling include: in the Smolnaya peak area on the night of July 12-13, where 15 shells were used; during an operation south of Lake Ilmen on July 14, where 50 shells were fired; and during the clearing of the Parevsky forest on August 2, where 59 shells were expended. This amount was insufficient to create a damaging cloud over a significant area. Gas cylinder attacks were not conducted.

The work of chemist A.S. Bobkov and historians N.I. Shilo and A.V. Glushko, based on documents, proves the absence of casualties from the use of "suffocating gases" in Tambov.