How do Leninists justify Bolshevik suppression of Anarchist movements?

[28350]

What were the reasons for the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Red Army? Was this justified?

On a similar note, why did the Bolsheviks oppose Makhno's Black Army?

[ZombieGrits]

I'm no expert in Russian history but they probably just opposed the anarchists because the anarchists opposed them, since the Bolsheviks did want to retain a state after all. There might have also been some paranoia that the anarchists and their unrest could provide just enough of a power vacuum for the Whites to gain a foothold

I'm generally a supporter of anarchism, but even while not necessarily supporting what they did to Makhno's people and the Kronstadt sailors, I understand their decision and would do the same were i in their shoes

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't justify political repression of anarchist movements, for the sake of repressing anarchist politics. I think that the anarchist tradition that is rooted in building working class militancy is valuable and an important part of the working class traddition even though I have criticisms of anarchism in general as well as some of the politics or tactics of existing groups.

I think these two examples you cited have been brought up on this site many times before and you can probably do a search for either.

Here's an interesting article from the International Socialist Review on Makhno and why his image has become more prominent over time... the following link is a response to the article by the writer for the AnarchistFAQ.

http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/makhno.shtml (http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/makhno.shtml)

http://www.isreview.org/issues/55/letters.shtml

In general, I think the problems with this debate come down to some people wanting to read history backwards... the Bolsheviks failed and the bureaucrats took over and yada yada and so people read certain decisions in reverse as proof that the Bolsheviks were somehow always intending to have what the USSR became. This is ridiculous in my view and just totally a-historical.

The other part of this debate that is often ignored is that the Bolsheviks who had been able to rally other classes behind the idea of working class power through soviets were facing a collapse of this social coalition. First the working class was being decimated and so the Bolsheviks tried to step in and use their party as a substitute for the working class (which potentially and eventually led to internal counter-revolution and power remaining with a party, not the working class). Second, the class interests of the peasants who were the majority oppressed group began to diverge from the interests of working class people. I think this, led to the support Makhno received because he was telling peasants to resist appropriations of grain by the red army.

Overlooking some of these material factors invariably turns this debate into really a question of weather you think that the Bolsheviks were always secretly plotting an internal bureaucratic take-over or if you think the Bols were the infallible supporters of workers at all points and at all times.

[Kléber]

The Bolsheviks did not set out to kill their Left SR allies nor the anarchists nor is that what actually happened, it wasn't a purge during peacetime like 1937, these disputes all occurred within the context of a civil war and foreign intervention by 14 capitalist armies.

The Left SR's and Nabat' (The Bell) group as well as some other anarchists tried to stage a coup attempt and terrorist attacks against Bolsheviks in the Soviet government during wartime. Same goes for the Kronstadt mutineers. They had many good criticisms of what was happening, but they should have saved them for after the war. Once they had risen up the Soviet power really had no choice except to violently suppress them; it was an unavoidable tragedy. However, many of the leftist rebels were eventually rehabilitated, such as Yakov Blumkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Blumkin) who had assassinated the German ambassador.

As for Makhno's group, yes, the Red Army led by Trotsky betrayed them, but they had betrayed the Reds before and would have done the same if they were in the position of power. The criticisms that the Makhnovists made of the Bolsheviks were hypocritical. The RIAU (Black Army) committed torture and executions of their political opponents, some of their units conducted anti-Semitic massacres, Makhno even supposedly shot one of his officers dead during a meeting.

[Nolan]

Oh, stick around a bit and you'll find out. ;)

[red cat]

I'm no expert in Russian history but they probably just opposed the anarchists because the anarchists opposed them, since the Bolsheviks did want to retain a state after all. There might have also been some paranoia that the anarchists and their unrest could provide just enough of a power vacuum for the Whites to gain a foothold

I'm generally a supporter of anarchism, but even while not necessarily supporting what they did to Makhno's people and the Kronstadt sailors, I understand their decision and would do the same were i in their shoes

In general if both groups are pro working class then difference of ideology does not lead to military confrontations. Many groups, though they identify with leftism, tend to become openly anti-working class over time. So the pro working class groups have no option but to oppose them in every way possible.

[ContrarianLemming]

ok, lets sort through this mess..




They had many good criticisms of what was happening, but they should have saved them for after the war. Once they had risen up the Soviet power really had no choice except to violently suppress them it was an unavoidable tragedy.

this is BS, hardly unavoidable, a peaceful solution was obviously at hand, emaa goldman herself offered to mediate, the reds refused, there was a reason the kronstadt motto was "all power to the soviets, not the party"


However, many of the leftist rebels were eventually rehabilitated, such as Yakov Blumkin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakov_Blumkin) who had assassinated the German ambassador.

rehabilitated?


As for Makhno's group, yes, the Red Army led by Trotsky betrayed them, but they had betrayed the Reds before and would have done the same if they were in the position of power.

I suppose you think the blacks were collaborators?


The criticisms that the Makhnovists made of the Bolsheviks were hypocritical. The RIAU (Black Army) committed torture and executions of their political opponents

completely unsubstantiated, i have never even heard of this one before


some of their units conducted anti-Semitic massacres, Makhno even supposedly shot one of his officers dead during a meeting.

ironically, Machno shot one of his guys for inciting an anti semetic pogrom, not before this guy pulled out his own gun upon being confronted

[ChrisK]

ok, lets sort through this mess..




this is BS, hardly unavoidable, a peaceful solution was obviously at hand, emaa goldman herself offered to mediate, the reds refused, there was a reason the kronstadt motto was "all power to the soviets, not the party"



rehabilitated?



I suppose you think the blacks were collaborators?



completely unsubstantiated, i have never even heard of this one before



ironically, Machno shot one of his guys for inciting an anti semetic pogrom, not before this guy pulled out his own gun upon being confronted



8. The workers' and peasants' soviets, the self-defence units of the workers and peasants, and the individual peasant and worker must not allow any counter-revolutionary manifestations by the bourgeoisie or military officers. Nor must they allow the emergence of banditry. Anyone convicted of counter-revolutionary acts or of banditry will be shot on the spot.
http://marxists.org/reference/archive/makhno-nestor/works/1920/telegraph.htm

Hmmmm. Not exactly what Kebler was talking about, but how does one define counter-revolutionary acts? Supporting Lenin?

Here's Trotsky writing in 1920 about what he see's in Makhno's camp:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/military/ch73.htm

Here's a good article about Makhno:
http://www.isreview.org/issues/53/makhno.shtml

And I'll have to get back to you on one. I think Serge said some stuff against Makhno, but don't quote me on it, I could be confusing people.

[revolution inaction]

The Bolsheviks did not set out to kill their Left SR allies nor the anarchists nor is that what actually happened, it wasn't a purge during peacetime like 1937, these disputes all occurred within the context of a civil war and foreign intervention by 14 capitalist armies.


This is not true, the bolsheviks began supresing the anarchists and workers democracy before the civil war began, see the bolsheviks and workers control (http://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group)
For example on 11th april 1918 the cheka attacked anarchist centres in moscow, the civil war didn't begin until about 25th may 1918.



The Left SR's and Nabat' (The Bell) group as well as some other anarchists tried to stage a coup attempt and terrorist attacks against Bolsheviks in the Soviet government during wartime. Same goes for the Kronstadt mutineers. They had many good criticisms of what was happening, but they should have saved them for after the war. Once they had risen up the Soviet power really had no choice except to violently suppress them; it was an unavoidable tragedy.

the kronstadt rebelion happend after the civil war!

[Kléber]

rehabilitated?
Well, the Left SR's were part of the Soviet state, even the Cheka, so when their party staged a coup attempt, and was banned as a result, those who didn't support the revolt had to become Bolsheviks to keep their jobs.


This is not true, the bolsheviks began supresing the anarchists and workers democracy before the civil war began, see the bolsheviks and workers control (http://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group)
For example on 11th april 1918 the cheka attacked anarchist centres in moscow, the civil war didn't begin until about 25th may 1918.

The civil war intensified in Spring 1918 with White uprisings in the East, but conflict began in November 1917 (new calendar), there were White uprisings like those of Kornilov and Kerensky-Krasnov prior to the Left SR revolt.


the kronstadt rebelion happend after the civil war!
Hostilities in Asia weren't over until 1922, when the Japanese withdrew and the last White holdout was defeated, so the Bolsheviks still felt that they couldn't take a soft approach to a military mutiny. I think the Bolshevik propaganda which said the revolt was foreign-backed was false, and none of the mutineers who surrendered should have been executed, it was a revolt of peasant soldiers in solidarity with widespread petty-bourgeois resistance to the workers' state. But the mutiny itself gave the Soviet regime no other option.

[Devrim]

Hostilities in Asia weren't over until 1922, when the Japanese withdrew and the last White holdout was defeated,
The civil war was pretty much over.

I think the Bolshevik propaganda which said the revolt was foreign-backed was false,
Lies is the word that springs to my mind. The Bolshevik party continuously lied to the working class throughout the Kronstadt revolt, and many of the leaders knew them to be lies.

it was a revolt of peasant soldiers in solidarity with widespread petty-bourgeois resistance to the workers' state.
It was a revolt of what had previously been called the 'cream of the revolution' in direct solidarity with the tens of thousands of workers who had been striking in Petrograd.

Devrim

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Same goes for the Kronstadt mutineers. They had many good criticisms of what was happening, but they should have saved them for after the war. Once they had risen up the Soviet power really had no choice except to violently suppress them; it was an unavoidable tragedy.

The civil war had been over for three months on the european front by the time the Kronstadt rebellion happened.

[Ismail]

Although the civil war in the western portion of the Russian SFSR had ended by the time of Kronstadt, it still just ended. The country was in shambles, NEP had been announced but a year ago, the Revolutionary War Council still existed, there was a constant fear of spies, saboteurs, etc. So acting as if everything was just calm and fine isn't very accurate.

Anyway, virtually all of the anarchist movements in Russia were peasant-oriented and represented the peasantry over the proletariat. (E.g. Makhno's suspicion of workers) That the anarchists hated the Bolsheviks was obviously another reason. So viewed from a point of peasantry vs. proletariat, I'll go with the latter.

It ultimately depends on how you want to portray either anarchism or Bolshevism. If anarchism in Russia was peasant-based, ultra-leftist, and played into the hands of reaction, then suppression makes sense. If the anarchists were the glorious heroes of the revolution and valiantly shot dead Bolsheviks because they traitorously engaged in the signing of Brest-Litovsk and such, then good luck with that. It's the same thing in the Spanish Civil War. Either the anarchists were ultra-leftists who were objectively undermining the war effort against Fascism or they were the ones spearheading an anarchist revolution which would simultaneously be able to defeat Franco's forces while the Popular Front was allegedly betraying the revolution-yearning proletariat of Spain, who, because no revolution was made, decided to throw their support behind... Francisco Franco.

[chegitz guevara]

Re Kronstadt: the Civil War had just ended, but Wrangel's army was still more or less intact, sitting over the border. Had the imperialists been convinced that the Bolshevik regime was barely standing, a new round of civil war or interventions could have begun.

What anarchists fail to understand, generally, is that there is a time and a place for everything. For example, everyone has the right to free speech, but if you and your buddy are hiding from zombies, that's not really the moment to be exercising your right to free speech, and your buddy would be justified in strangling you in order to survive if you won't shut up.

[Devrim]

Although the civil war in the western portion of the Russian SFSR had ended by the time of Kronstadt, it still just ended. The country was in shambles, NEP had been announced but a year ago, the Revolutionary War Council still existed, there was a constant fear of spies, saboteurs, etc. So acting as if everything was just calm and fine isn't very accurate.


The NEP was implemented on 21st March, two days after the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising. It puts the accusations that to Kronstadt rebels had a peasant programme into perspective. Two of the demands of the Kronstadt Soviet made concessions to the peasantry:


11. To give the peasants full control over their own land, to do as they wish, and also to keep cattle, which must be maintained and managed by their own strength, that is, without using hired labor.
...
15. To allow free handicraft manufacture by personal labor.

Whereas the NEP made concessions not only to small peasants, but to big peasants, merchants and capitalists.


Anyway, virtually all of the anarchist movements in Russia were peasant-oriented and represented the peasantry over the proletariat. (E.g. Makhno's suspicion of workers) That the anarchists hated the Bolsheviks was obviously another reason. So viewed from a point of peasantry vs. proletariat, I'll go with the latter.

Kronstadt wasn't an anarchist revolt. Yes, it was supported by anarchists, but there were very few involved. There were certainly more Bolsheviks (most of whom resigned during the course of events) involved than anarchists. Nor was it a peasant revolt. The vast majority of the leaders were industrial workers.


It ultimately depends on how you want to portray either anarchism or Bolshevism. If anarchism in Russia was peasant-based, ultra-leftist, and played into the hands of reaction, then suppression makes sense. If the anarchists were the glorious heroes of the revolution and valiantly shot dead Bolsheviks because they traitorously engaged in the signing of Brest-Litovsk and such, then good luck with that.

No, not at all, because it was not an anarchist revolt. It was a revolt of workers sailors and soldiers.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

No, not at all, because it was not an anarchist revolt. It was a revolt of workers sailors and soldiers.

Devrim

But workers and sailors have political view points ranging from the Marxist to the reactionary. If the politics of the Kronsdahdt revolt were not anarchist than what were they?

[Zanthorus]

some of their units conducted anti-Semitic massacres,

I've never read anything about any massacres. However there were many Jewish people in the Makhnovist movement like Kogan, Zin'Kovsky, Elena Keller and Iosif Gutman. Peter Arshinov did a pretty good debunking of the anti-semitism thing in his History of the Makhnovist movement here (http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/arshinov/10.htm).

[Devrim]

Re Kronstadt: the Civil War had just ended, but Wrangel's army was still more or less intact, sitting over the border. Had the imperialists been convinced that the Bolshevik regime was barely standing, a new round of civil war or interventions could have begun.

This whole argument is a red herring. As if it is OK to shoot communist workers if a White Army is sitting just across the boarder anyway.

Even worse though it is factually untrue. Wrangel's army was evacuated from the Crimea to Turkey in November 1920, and was in Constantinople, i.e. on the other side of the Black Sea without a fleet, at the time of the Kronstadt revolt.

Devrim

[Devrim]

But workers and sailors have political view points ranging from the Marxist to the reactionary. If the politics of the Kronsdahdt revolt were not anarchist than what were they?

I would imagine that some were anarchists, some SRs, but the majority of the Kronstadt rebels were probably disillusioned Bolsheviks.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

This whole argument is a red herring. As if it is OK to shoot communist workers if a White Army is sitting just across the boarder anyway.

Even worse though it is factually untrue. Wrangel's army was evacuated from the Crimea to Turkey in November 1920, and was in Constantinople, i.e. on the other side of the Black Sea without a fleet, at the time of the Kronstadt revolt.

Devrim

Dont the International Communist Current believe that the Bholseviks were still part of the "Proletarian camp" at this stage? It puts into context your claim that the INLA couldnt possibly be a socialist organization because of the problemns and killings surrounding their fued with the IPLO, doesnt it?

[Jimmie Higgins]

This debate is only possible because the the Russian Revolution was pushed back and the chance for workers power was lost. If the working class had come through the early years of war and famine more intact and the revolution had support from a German revolution, then these examples would be more or less moot - maybe it would be seen as the over-reaction of people in desperate times.

But since the revolution did fail, there is a tendency among people who want to prove that the bolshiviks were never interested in workers power to read history in reverse. This ignores the material circumstances and suggests that somehow some other political ideas could have made the decisive difference, not objective factors such as the decimation of the already weak and small working class, the mixed and under-developed state of Russian industry as well as Russia's isolation.

Could the Makhnovists have really fared better? What magic did they have that would have allowed a peasant rebellion turn out any differently than every other peasant rebellion in history - basically leadership under a warlord like the various peasant revolutions in dynastic China. Could the Makhnovists have defeated the white army single-handedly - attacks by imperialist countries? If they were somehow able to defeat the counter-revolutionary forces, how would they survive as an island-like peasant commune surrounded by semi-feudal and capitalist countries?

In fact the article I linked above argues that Machno, ironically, suffered many of the same problems that the Bolsheviks did but on a smaller scale. It also argues that while the Makhnovists were able to be fairly egalitarian at some points, at other points they had to operate in an autocratic manner and force conscription and appropriate supplies against the will of people.

Ideas and politics are important but they can not overcome objective material situations.

[Devrim]

But since the revolution did fail, there is a tendency among people who want to prove that the bolshiviks were never interested in workers power to read history in reverse. This ignores the material circumstances and suggests that somehow some other political ideas could have made the decisive difference, not objective factors such as the decimation of the already weak and small working class, the mixed and under-developed state of Russian industry as well as Russia's isolation.

Absolutely not. The cause of the defeat of the revolution was its international isolation. Without the revolution spreading, it couldn't have been victorious. That does not mean that the degeneration of the Bolshevik party and its crimes against the working class should be whitewashed.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Dont the International Communist Current believe that the Bholseviks were still part of the "Proletarian camp" at this stage? It puts into context your claim that the INLA couldnt possibly be a socialist organization because of the problemns and killings surrounding their fued with the IPLO, doesnt it?

No, I don't think so. We say that the Bolshevik party acted against the working class at Kronstadt. Yes, there were still revolutionaries inside the party, but it was already a degenerating party. Kronstadt is an example of this.

Devrim

[Ismail]

The NEP was implemented on 21st March, two days after the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising.The principles of what would become the NEP were discussed at the Tenth Party Congress of March 8-16 1921 IIRC.

[Devrim]

The principles of what would become the NEP were discussed at the Tenth Party Congress of March 8-16 1921 IIRC.

Yes, during the Kronstadt revolt. Therefore it hadn't been in place for a year.

Devrim

[Ismail]

True.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Oh, stick around a bit and you'll find out. ;)

Heheh.

This thread saddens me because if suppression of anarchists can happen during a working class revolution before, it can happen again. And from some of these responses, it looks as if some wouldn't have a problem with it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Absolutely not. The cause of the defeat of the revolution was its international isolation. Without the revolution spreading, it couldn't have been victorious. That does not mean that the degeneration of the Bolshevik party and its crimes against the working class should be whitewashed.

Devrim
That's a straw-man I wasn't arguing to whitewash anything I was arguing that it doesn't increase our understanding to read history backwards. Do you think the goal of these two instances was explicitly the suppression of anarchists on the grounds of repressing an ideology? It's easy to see these actions as wrong when we know the outcome of the revolution already, but I think the Bolsheviks really thought they were helping to keep things together in hopes of the working class being able to reassert its rule when war and famine were over. Of course we know this didn't work and actually led to much worse things, but they did not have our hindsight.

So again, do you think this was political repression for the sole purpose of repressing anarchists as the OP suggests?

[Agapi]

Likely because the revolution was fragile at the time, and the Bolsheviks sought cohesion in the face of global adversity. One could argue that they disproportionately responded to left-criticism of War Communism. Instead seeing things like Kronstadt as being rooted around legitimate concerns and pressures, they saw libertarian thought as a threat that needed to be removed to preserve the gains towards socialism that had been accomplished.

[Devrim]

Do you think the goal of these two instances was explicitly the suppression of anarchists on the grounds of repressing an ideology?
...
So again, do you think this was political repression for the sole purpose of repressing anarchists as the OP suggests?

Er no, as I have already quite clearly I don't think that there was anything particularly anarchist about the Krondstadt revolt.


It's easy to see these actions as wrong when we know the outcome of the revolution already, but I think the Bolsheviks really thought they were helping to keep things together in hopes of the working class being able to reassert its rule when war and famine were over.

I don't think that it is really a matter of whether they 'really thought they were helping'. They ended up massacring thousands of communist workers. There are real political lessons to be learnt from Kronstadt concerning the issues of violence within the class, and the relationship of party and state, and the state in the transition period in general.

You approach of seeing it as some sort of unfortunate accident is to ignore all of these.


Of course we know this didn't work and actually led to much worse things, but they did not have our hindsight.

No, we didn't have the benefit of hindsight, but there were those of the left-wing of the party in Russia who stood against the massacre at the time. I don't think that it takes much hindsight to realise that when a party is lying about workers who had a more socialist programme than they did in order to slander them as whites, and counter-revolutionaries, and then goes out and massacres thousands of communist workers that the revolution was really sounding its death-knoll.

Devrim

[Kléber]

The Kronstadt mutiny obviously reflected mass discontent of the worker, soldier, and peasant masses with War Communism and other policies of the Bolshevik regime. Their criticisms, like those the Hébertists made of Robespierre, were mainly justified proletarian demands. The Bolsheviks' response was likewise despotic. But the government's options in dealing with the rebels were severely constrained by wartime considerations.

According to Wikipedia the revolt was basically responsible for the end of WC and start of NEP, and the ban on factions in the RCP(B). The ban on factions was obviously a huge mistake since it did not actually prevent the formation of factions, it just facilitated the bureaucratic expulsion of groups who represented the proletariat.

With Japanese troops still enforcing whiteguard rule in the Soviet Far East, and Red troops fighting monarchists for control of Mongolia and Central Asia, Lenin and Trotsky didn't think they had a choice but to suppress the mutiny, and do so swiftly and with a show of force so as to discourage similar actions and maintain war production.

The Bolsheviks wanted to prolong the existence of the workers' state by any means necessary, even if that conflicted with the temporary interests of Russian workers. This was obviously contradictory. It's only justifiable in the context of the first four Congresses of the Comintern, when the USSR saw itself as incapable of building socialism alone and was devoted to the world revolution. Once that had been abandoned, the state existed only for itself, supposedly moving toward socialism (or communism) in a single country, and the cyclical logic of self-preservation gave the state the right to exploit and murder the workers - not for the needs of war production against invaders and White Guards, but for the perpetual enrichment of corrupt bureaucratic fat cats - until it transitioned back into an outright capitalist state, complete with Tsarist tricolor.

In retrospect, the executions probably dealt a crushing blow to the already-decimated layer of revolutionary workers who had accomplished the October Revolution, and that may be partly why Trotsky was not able to rally mass proletarian support for the Left Opposition within the military-bureaucratic apparatus which the proletariat had created only to be enslaved by. Like Robespierre, he had been forced by events stemming from the unexpected isolation of the revolution to purge the most radical representatives of his own class, his closest ally had died from wounds inflicted by an assassin, and thus, nobody would come to his aid against the Right when they took him down.

The Kronstadt mutiny gives important lessons to communists who lean to either side. The more radical ones should be cautious about using the foolish and often suicidal tactic of armed protest which forces the hand of whoever it's used against. Leninists should also take note that heads chopped off don't grow back, and the logic of a state that exists to preserve itself can be taken to an extreme of being used as justification for reactionary backsliding, whether you want to call that "state capitalism," "Leninism," "Stalinism" or "revisionism." The mass execution of mutineers and the ban on factions were mistakes made by honest revolutionaries that harmed the revolution and should not be repeated in any circumstances.

[Devrim]

According to Wikipedia the revolt was basically responsible for the end of war communism and start of NEP, and the ban on factions in the RCP(B). The ban on factions was obviously a huge mistake since it did not actually prevent the formation of factions, it just facilitated the bureaucratic expulsion of groups who represented the proletariat

All factions were officially prohibited at the tenth congress, but this was the cumulation of a process, which went back to 1918, which was when the first faction within the post revolutionary Bolshevik party was banned.


The Bolsheviks wanted to prolong the existence of the workers' state by any means necessary, even if that conflicted with the temporary interests of Russian workers.

The left communists were quite clear on this question at the time. Socialism can only be built by the working class itself:


We stand for the construction of the proletarian society by the class creativity of the workers themselves, not by the ukases of the captains of industry. . . if the proletariat itself does not know how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour no one can do this for it and no one can compel it to do this. The stick, if raised against the workers, will find itself in the hands of a social force which is either under the influence of another social class or is in the hands of the soviet power; but the soviet power will then be forced to seek support against the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry) and by this it will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set up at all - something else will be set up - state capitalism.

What was Lenin's response? To call these arguments "a disgrace", "a complete renunciation of communism in practice", and "a desertion to the camp of the petty bourgeoisie", followed by the hasty convening of a Leningrad Party conference to call for their suppression as a faction.


The Kronstadt mutiny gives important lessons to communists who fall on either side. The more radical ones should be cautious about using the foolish and often suicidal tactic of armed protest which forces the hand of whoever it's used against.

Except they didn't use the tactic of 'armed protest'. What they did was to hold new elections to the soviet and to pass a resolution. It was the Bolshevik party that fired the first shots, and the Bolshevik party with its slanders and lies that turned it into an uprising.

Let's let Serge, a writer who was a member of the Left Opposition take up the story:


The Petrograd Pravda informed its readers that Kouzmin, Commissar for the navy and the army, had been manhandled during his imprisonment at Kronstadt, and had narrowly escaped summary execution - on written orders from the counter-revolutionaries. I knew Kouzmin, an energetic, hard-working soldier, a teacher of military science, grey from tip to toe; his uniform, even his wrinkled face were grey. He 'escaped' from Kronstadt and turned up at Smollny.
'It is hard to believe.' I said to him , 'that they intended to shoot you. Did you really see any such order?'
He looked embarrassed, and did not answer for a moment.
'Oh, one always exaggerates a bit. There was a threatening note.'
In short, he had let his tongue run away with him. That was the whole story. The Kronstadt rebels had spilled not a single drop of blood, had gone no further than to arrest a few Communist officials, all of whom had been well treated. Most of the Communists, several hundred in all, had gone over to the rebels, which showed clearly enough how weak the party had become at its base. Nevertheless, someone had cooked up this story about hairbreadth escapes from the firing squad!

The Bolsheviks declared that there was a revolt, and placed themselves in armed opposition to a group of workers, sailors, and soldiers who had done nothing more than to elect a new Soviet and express their grievances. The armed revolt wasn't started by the Krondstadt rebels. It was forced on them by a party that then lied to the workers and its military forces that they were white guards in order to justify their military suppression, all before a shot had been fired.

Devrim

[Kléber]

I agree with Serge that the way it was handled shows how the revolution was already degenerating. But according to him, the revolt had inspired an army mutiny in Petrograd proper aimed at destroying the Bolshevik party outright. The call for free elections contradicts the slogan "soviets without Communists," which if carried out would almost certainly have led to a reactionary dictatorship, whereas by preserving what remained of workers' power in the form of the Bolshevik-run soviets, the counterrevolution was delayed by about 20 years. Of course that counter-revolution butchered the proletarian leaders on an international scale and since it happened within a "socialist" state led to massive confusion on the left continuing to the present day. But nevertheless I think that couldn't have been foreseen by Lenin and Trotsky - at the time you still had the Tambov rebellion, Ungern-Sternberg, etc.

[Devrim]

But according to him, the revolt had inspired an army mutiny in Petrograd proper aimed at destroying the Bolshevik party outright.

Please source this. I have read Serge and never come across it. The revolt came in support of massive working class strikes in Petrograd, but I don't believe there was an army mutiny.


The call for free elections contradicts the slogan "soviets without Communists," which if carried out would almost certainly have led to a reactionary dictatorship, whereas by preserving what remained of workers' power in the form of the Bolshevik-run soviets, the counterrevolution was delayed by about 20 years.

The call for 'Soviets without communists' was never raised by the Kronstadt Soviet. In fact they allowed the local communist party organisation to publish its statements in their paper.

As for your comments about the counter revolution, I am not sure when you believe it happened (1941?), but to me massacring workers and suppressing Soviets is pretty much the counter revolution in motion.

Devrim

[Ismail]

Kléber is probably saying that the 1936 Constitution, which abolished the Congress of Soviets, was the "counterrevolution." In practice however the Congress wasn't much different from the Supreme Soviet which replaced it, and the Stakhanovite movement (which condemned abusive managers and promoted worker participation in factory affairs) and such pretty much made up for it in the short term.

[Raúl Duke]

Heheh.

This thread saddens me because if suppression of anarchists can happen during a working class revolution before, it can happen again. And from some of these responses, it looks as if some wouldn't have a problem with it.

Actually, that and this reminds me of a previous thread that TAT started once discussing the similar example of the May Days in the Spanish Civil War. If I recall, he didn't bluntly say it, but the implication of the thread was "What should we do about those authoritarian communists, especially when they start making moves against us while they're "allied" to us."

I think it was semi-unanimous that what we should do is take a tougher stance and that even when allied with them we should be cautious of everything they do and prepare for the case if they do attempt to betray us (and thus, squash them).

Realize that it was events like Kronstadt, May Days in the Spanish Civil War, and perhaps also the fate of the Mahknovischina and the "Left Opposition" that makes, in some sort of "collective/historical conscious" kind of way, anarchists in general weary of "alliances" or working with Leninists in times of social upheaval/revolution/civil war.

[Kléber]

Please source this. I have read Serge and never come across it. The revolt came in support of massive working class strikes in Petrograd, but I don't believe there was an army mutiny.

The Orianienbaum incident is never mentioned; but in my opinion it brought the Kronstadt rebels within reach of a victory which they did not want - and might easily have resulted in the fall of Petrograd. Serge Zorin, the blond Viking who was secretary of the Petrograd Committee, noticed something peculiar about the orders being given by one of the infantry commanders. For instance, certain arbitrarily chosen cadets were kept standing guard close to the artillery emplacements, and regroupings were being effected for which there was no evident reason. After a couple of days there was no longer any doubt that a conspiracy was afoot. As an act of solidarity with Kronstadt, an entire regiment was going to switch sides and call upon the army to rebel. Zorin immediately ordered into the regiment men who could be counted upon, doubled the number of sentry posts and the compliment of soldiers assigned to each, and arrested the regiment's commanding officer, a man who had spent many years as an officer in the Imperial Army. He was brutally frank: 'For years I had looked forward to that hour. I hate you, you murderers of Russia. Now I've lost, life means nothing to me.' Along with a considerable number of his accomplices, he was shot. His regiment, by the way, had been withdrawn from the front in Poland.
http://libcom.org/library/kronstadt-21-serge

Of course, I also agree with most of his criticism of the repression.

The Kronstadt episode ... poses the questions of the relations between the party of the proletariat and the masses, of the internal regime of the party (the Workers’ Opposition was smashed), of socialist ethics (all Petrograd was deceived by the announcement of a White movement in Kronstadt), of humaneness in the class struggle and above all in the struggle within our classes. Finally it puts us today to the test as to our self-critical capacity.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1938/04/kronstadt.htm


The call for 'Soviets without communists' was never raised by the Kronstadt Soviet. In fact they allowed the local communist party organisation to publish its statements in their paper.
Really? Was it a fabrication then into which Victor Serge was tricked to believing? I'm not trying to sound sarcastic, I will have to look into that more.


As for your comments about the counter revolution, I am not sure when you believe it happened (1941?), but to me massacring workers and suppressing Soviets is pretty much the counter revolution in motion.
Robespierre had to put down rival bourgeois Conventions but he still stood against the main forces of counter-revolution. Like Lenin he opposed the excesses of the Terror near the end of his life. Like the Committee of Public Safety, the Cheka made great mistakes in the defense of the gains of October, by using criminal underhanded methods to suppress the mutiny long before diplomatic methods had been exhausted, but their panicked response must be understood in the context of massive foreign reactionary intervention and Civil War that was not fully over and might have flared back up if the Soviet power began to buckle; nevertheless those mistakes did contribute to the counter-revolutionary process by demoralizing the proletariat and estranging it from the fast-bureaucratizing state machinery, therefore such actions should not be repeated except to the detriment of future proletarian struggles.


Kléber is probably saying that the 1936 Constitution, which abolished the Congress of Soviets, was the "counterrevolution." In practice however the Congress wasn't much different from the Supreme Soviet which replaced it, and the Stakhanovite movement (which condemned abusive managers and promoted worker participation in factory affairs) and such pretty much made up for it in the short term.
I was referring to the purges of Communists particularly in 1937-8, sorry for not clarifying that. I think the 1936 Constitution was at best a formality, at worst a joke given the subsequent fate of the 17th Party Congress and hundreds of thousands of good Communists, Soviet citizens, Red Army and revolutionary veterans.

The Stakhanov movement seems like more of a lottery to me, it allowed a handful of workers to enjoy the privileges of the bureaucracy, which was engaging in personal primitive accumulation since the cap on Party salaries had been abolished in 1931. Thus, like the market reforms throughout the "socialist" world decades later, Stakhanovism was aimed towards diluting the profits, producing local elites whose stake in the corrupt system could shore up the despotic bureaucratic system. In this respect, I agree that Stakhanovism did mitigate the social contradictions, represented a payoff to the proletariat as a whole, and thus confirmed Trotsky's analysis that the bureaucracy under Stalin was not yet a capitalist class in itself but still a caste of labor aristocrats on the way to becoming one. More importantly, however, I think the Stakhanov movement was evidence that social differentiation was occuring in the "socialist" 1930's.


I think it was semi-unanimous that what we should do is take a tougher stance and that even when allied with them we should be cautious of everything they do and prepare for the case if they do attempt to betray us (and thus, squash them).
The various working-class parties in Spain were well-prepared for each other. The Anarchists, Communists, POUM and Socialists each kept significant amounts of their weapons back from the front out of fear that the other parties would try to sneakily wipe them out in the cities while they were out combating fascism.


Realize that it was events like Kronstadt, May Days in the Spanish Civil War, and perhaps also the fate of the Mahknovischina and the "Left Opposition" that makes, in some sort of "collective/historical conscious" kind of way, anarchists in general weary of "alliances" or working with Leninists in times of social upheaval/revolution/civil war.
There is a qualitative difference between, one the one hand, the assassinations and executions in Spain carried out by PCE troops and Soviet agents at the behest of the tiny Republican bourgeoisie to crush what workers' power there was in Catalonia order to make the Spanish Republic more "respectable" to certain "democratic" imperialist countries, and on the other, the suppression of a secessionist soviet right next to Petrograd in order to maintain war production to defend workers' power against the entire imperialist world.

The "Leninists" in the PCE, as a Comintern organization, had already abandoned international revolution in 1934 - by the new doctrine of the Popular Front they were committed to supporting liberals by any means necessary, even if it meant using their arms against workers' power in Barcelona, because the ultimate aim was not a revolution in Spain, it was to forge an alliance between the USSR and Anglo-French imperialism. Therefore, the PCE was not a Leninist party at all, it was based on subservience to the shadow of the national bourgeoisie and imperialism. The Spanish Republic was not a workers' state, it had not been established by a revolution. Remember that "Bolshevik-Leninists" (Trotskyists) of the Sección Bolchevique-Leninista de España and of course the centrist POUM died in defense of workers' power, along with anarchists in the May Days.

The "Anarchists" of the CNT/FAI participated in the Popular Front government, therefore they are just as guilty of collaboration in the violence of the May Days as Trotsky was in the suppression of the Kronstadt insurrection. Also, the CNT/FAI committed thousands of extrajudicial executions and assassinations before and during the war. Furthermore, some "Anarchists" in Madrid participated in the right-wing Casado-Besteiro junta of surrender which shot Luis Barceló and other defencist officers after defeating the Communist troops in 1939. By participating in a right-wing coup to get revenge on the PCE, Cipriano Mera's anarchist troops helped hand Madrid over to Franco. So, even though the PCE cast the first stone doing Prieto's and Stalin's dirty-work, sectarian violence was committed by all tendencies.

[Devrim]

But according to him, the revolt had inspired an army mutiny in Petrograd proper aimed at destroying the Bolshevik party outright.

OK, looking at the quote you provided, first there wasn't a revolt as you stated. There may have been somebody planning one, but there wasn't a revolt. Second there is no suggestion there that it was inspired by the Kronstadt uprising in fact, the opposite is implied in that the guy claims to have been "looking forward to that hour for years", and finally I think these sort of events happened all the time in Soviet Russia. There is nothing particulary interesting about it.

I think it is quite dishonest to attempt to smear the Kronstadt rebels by associating them with Tzarist army officers.


Really? Was it a fabrication then into which Victor Serge was tricked to believing? I'm not trying to sound sarcastic, I will have to look into that more.

Translations of all 14 editions of Kronstadt Izvestia can be found here:

http://libcom.org/library/kronstadt-izvestiia


Like the Committee of Public Safety, the Cheka made great mistakes in the defense of the gains of October, by using criminal underhanded methods to suppress the mutiny long before diplomatic methods had been exhausted,

I don't think you can pin this one on the Cheka alone. Lenin, Trotsky and others all played their roles.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Essentially I agree with the general thrust of your points on Spain. There are a few things I'd like to comment on though.


So, even though the PCE cast the first stone doing Prieto's and Stalin's dirty-work, sectarian violence was committed by all tendencies.

I don't think it is right to term this 'sectarian violence'. It is the violence of a bourgeois party against workers.


The "Anarchists" of the CNT/FAI participated in the Popular Front government, therefore they are just as guilty of collaboration in the violence of the May Days as Trotsky was in the suppression of the Kronstadt insurrection.

The leadership of the CNT-FAI were guilty of collaboration during the Maydays. They called for an end to the strike, for the workers to down arms, and to dismantle their barricades. This allowed the Stalinists and their death squads to go on the offensive and massacre militant workers.

Whether 'as guilty as Trotsky' is a different question. Surely there is a difference between that and ordering people to be killed. On a more important point, I have never heard an anarchist defend those actions after the events. In general today anarchists believe that the leadership of the CNT-FAI was wrong whereas Trotskyists still defend the surpression of Kronstadt.


Remember that "Bolshevik-Leninists" (Trotskyists) of the Sección Bolchevique-Leninista de España and of course the centrist POUM died in defense of workers' power, along with anarchists in the May Days.


I think that you are making this up here. The Bolshevik-Leninists had eight members and I don't think that any of them died in the Maydays.

Devrim

[Zanthorus]

The "Anarchists" of the CNT/FAI participated in the Popular Front government.

Not without some resistance.


The leaders of the CNT-FAI, first of all, did what they could not to give in [join the government-S.D.]. They were undoubtedly inspired by their traditional opposition to all governmentalism... and all government parties. But in the face of the growing danger [fascist victory-S.D.] the greatest unification possible was needed. They thought up a revolutionary solution: the government should be replaced by a Defense Council of five members, five from the UGT, four from the republican parties, five members of the CNT. In this way they sought to make clear the supremacy of workers' syndical organizations over the political parties.

Although it should be added that the proposal was not made by the leadership but after discussion in the national plenum of regions.

The proposal was of course rejected by the UGT and other left political parties during the war.

[StalinFanboy]

I want to know how Leninists justify being Leninists.

[Zanthorus]

Well, and this is just an outside guess ya know, I would think that they've read and agree with Lenin's works and broadly agree with most if not all of the actions he took. I could be completely off on this one though.

[ArmedGuerilla]

Hmmmm well I can't say, not being a Leninist. But you know that during the Russian Civil War the Bolsheviks were fighting with anarchists and basically all leftists no matter their idea on communism.

[chegitz guevara]

Anarchists don't take showers or use deodorant. That alone is reason enough to suppress them.

[Vendetta]

Anarchists don't take showers or use deodorant. That alone is reason enough to suppress them.

AND! I love to roll around in mud. Don't forget that.

[jmlima]

Anarchists don't take showers or use deodorant. That alone is reason enough to suppress them.

That's your average 21st century anarchist. :D

They used to be respectable people with stern looks.

Some still are... ;)

[A.R.Amistad]

By Abbie Bakan


Continuity between Lenin and Stalin is often claimed by reference to the Kronstadt revolt of 1921. But as Abbie Bakan explains the repression was necessary to defend the revolution.

THERE ARE few issues in the history of the Bolshevik tradition as controversial as that of the Kronstadt events. The course of events alone is disturbing. But the lessons of this part of Bolshevik history are important for socialists today.
The repression of the uprising in the island fortress of Kronstadt in 1921 by the Bolsheviks was, as Trotsky described it in August of 1940 (the same month in which he died at the hand of a Stalinist agent), a 'tragic necessity.'
Tragic beyond a doubt-about 600 of the Kronstadt sailors who rebelled against Bolshevik rule were killed in the events, and some 2,500 were taken prisoner. Among the dead were undoubtedly some who were unilaterally killed in the very final stages of the military conflict.
But this number pales against the list of casualties among the loyal Bolshevik defenders of the young workers' state who were killed at the hands of the Kronstadt rebel forces. The number of dead, wounded and missing is conservatively estimated at 10,000, including among the dead some 15 delegates to the Bolsheviks' Tenth Party Congress.
The Kronstadt revolt had the character of a mutiny against the Bolshevik leadership of the military. and of the state. This arose at a time when that state was in a desperately vulnerable position, with its survival at stake.
Military struggle is only politics in a hothouse, and individual lives become subordinate to the torrential waves of historic social change. And this is why Kronstadt symbolised not only tragedy, but also absolute necessity.
Necessity, not because the Bolsheviks were always right – quite the contrary – they, like all active revolutionaries, made many mistakes.
The repression of the Kronstadt revolt was a necessity because there is no question that if the Kronstadt rebellion had been successful, it would have been, as Lenin said, 'a step, a ladder, a bridge' to the victory of counter-revolution. Its success would have opened the way for the restoration of the Whites, the reactionary forces uniting monarchists, social democratic Mensheviks and foreign armies in a massive assault on the fledgling and isolated workers' state.
What, then, was the rebellion really about? To understand it, we have to look at the background to events in revolutionary Russia.

IN 1921 Russia was part of a world system in profound crisis. Capitalists in every country in the world were desperate to isolate and strangle the young workers' state that threatened to spread into the heart of capitalist Europe and beyond.
The Russian Bolsheviks had successfully defended the revolution against some 14 invading imperialist armies which were backed up by a vicious counter-revolutionary campaign led by the White army. By the spring of 1921 the civil war was over, at least in terms of the major military dimensions of the conflict.
The Whites were defeated, but it was not clear if this was a permanent or temporary defeat, because the armies had not fully demobilised their forces. The White army general, Wrangel, still had units totalling between 70 and 80 thousand in Turkey in close alliance with, and aided by, the government of France.
Meanwhile, Russia was like a Third World nation in a state of starvation. Between 1918 and 1920 seven and a half million Russians died from famine, exposure and epidemics alone, not counting war casualties.
By the last phase of the civil war Russia's income per head had been reduced to one third of its already impoverished level of 1913; industrial production was reduced to one fifth of its pre-war level; coal mining was at one tenth and iron production at one fortieth of pre-war averages; and the railway system was nearly destroyed.
The price of isolation was not only economic, but also social. With the collapse of industry the towns, the backbone of Bolshevik victory, were in crisis. The minority urban working class was decimated by war, and a massive shrinkage in the urban populations followed as unemployed workers returned to their peasant families in the countryside. Labour productivity declined to one third of its pre-war level. The soviets or workers' councils, the core of the revolution, were virtually non-functional in such conditions.
The peasant producers, and the working class consumers, faced a bitter struggle for bread. Workers' democracy could only advance if the material basis for their survival was assured. The peasants, on the other hand, having won their land in a revolutionary alliance with the urban based Bolsheviks, now fought to retain their produce for sale on the private market.
The Bolsheviks responded with War Communism, at the centrepiece of which was a policy of forced requisitioning of peasant grain. During the civil war peasants joined the Red Army and the Bolshevik Party in large numbers. But with the Whites defeated, by early 1921 two and a half million peasants were demobilised.
Throughout the policy of War Communism groups of armed peasants confronted the grain collection detachments and were quickly crushed by the Bolsheviks. Now waves of peasant uprisings swept across the Russian countryside. In February 1921 alone, the month before the Kronstadt uprising, over 118 separate peasant revolts were reported in various regions of Russia.
But concessions to the peasant majority meant increased hardship and decreasing confidence and power for the working class, and it was in the hands of the working class that the future of Russian and international socialism rested. In January of 1921 the Bolsheviks announced that the already poor bread ration for Moscow and Petrograd was to be reduced by one third.
The reduction was reached reluctantly by the Bolsheviks, but they had no choice. Heavy snows and fuel shortages had held up grain trains, in addition to the crisis of peasant non-cooperation with the government. In the first week and a half of February not a single carload of grain arrived to reach the already empty warehouses of Moscow.

IN THESE conditions even the mainstay of the revolution, the working class, went on strike for bread. Strikes spread throughout Petrograd, and the survival of a socialist bridgehead to world revolution came under severe threat.
Lenin described in 1921 the conditions which were necessary for the victory of socialism in backward Russia: 'Here industrial workers are in a minority, and the petty farmers are the vast majority. In such a country, the socialist revolution can triumph only on two conditions. First, if it is given timely support by a socialist revolution in one or several advanced countries... The second condition is agreement between the proletariat, which is exercising its dictatorship, that is, holds state power, and the majority of the peasant population.'
Russia in 1921 had seen neither of these conditions fulfilled. But the revolution in Germany had not been decisively defeated. With the Whites defeated, negotiations were in progress for a commercial treaty between the weakened workers' state and Britain, and a peace treaty was under negotiation with Poland. The aim of the Bolsheviks was to hold on to power and fight to inspire the success of workers' struggles against capitalism in 'one or several advanced countries.'
This is the situation in which the Kronstadt uprising occurred.
During the 1917 revolution the Kronstadt sailors were among the most politically advanced of the entire working class movement. Trotsky had relied on them during the revolution to lead forces all across the country during the years of invasion and civil war. Kronstadt sailors were at the political centre of an army composed largely of peasant recruits who had shifted very quickly and rapidly from reactionary backgrounds to Bolshevism.
But, as the Kronstadt sailors fought and led, so were they killed and wounded, and replaced in the Baltic Fleet by conscripts from the rural districts. The Bolsheviks called them rather unaffectionately 'peasant lads in sailor suits.'
As in all of Russia, when the civil war came to an end, the vanguard of the working class, the ones who had fought in the centre of the Red Army, were gone.
By 1921 more than three quarters of the sailors in the Baltic Fleet stationed at Kronstadt were recent recruits of peasant origin. This was a reversal of the situation in 1917, when the majority were recruited from the industrial centre of Petrograd, the heart of the workers' revolution in Russia.
Petrichenko, the leader of the uprising of March 1921, was himself a Ukrainian peasant, and later acknowledged that many of his fellow mutineers were peasants from the south who were in sympathy with the peasant opposition movement against the Bolsheviks.

WITH PEASANT backwardness came backward ideas. In January of 1921 alone some 5,000 Baltic sailors left the Communist Party in protest. In the Kronstadt party organisation particularly, between August of 1920 and March of 1921 half of its 4,000 members resigned. War Communism was seen as the product of Communism, rather than the product of the attacks against Communism by world capitalism and its allies.
Anti-semitism was vicious and rampant. The worst venom of the Kronstadt rebels was levelled against Trotsky and Zinoviev, treated as Jewish scapegoats among the Bolsheviks. Racism against the Jews was common among peasants from the Ukraine and the western borderlands, from where many of the Kronstadt rebels were recently recruited, and where the majority of the leadership of the revolt, the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee, were from. As one of the committee, Vershinin, announced when he came out on the ice on 8 March to state their demands to a Soviet detachment: 'Enough of your "hoorahs", and join with us to beat the Jews. It's their cursed domination that we workers and peasants have to endure.'
Further evidence of vicious anti-semitism is apparent in memoirs of a seaman involved in the Kronstadt rising. In a passage referring to the Bolshevik regime as the 'first Jewish republic', he called the Soviet government's ultimatum to retreat 'the ultimatum of the Jew Trotsky.'
The demands of the Kronstadt sailors reflected the ideas of the most backward section of the peasantry.
Couched in calls for greater freedoms, the main economic target was the programme of forced requisitioning of peasant produce and the roadblock detachments that halted the black market in grain. The Bolsheviks were already discussing the abandonment of War Communism in favour of a programme concessionary to the peasants which would later be dubbed the New Economic Policy. But the content of the revolt went further. The sailors called for the abolition of Bolshevik authority in the army, factories and mills. The sailors' opening declaration, that 'the present soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants', indicated the real character of the rebellion.
The adoption of a 15 point programme at a meeting on 28 February was fuelled by the strike wave taking place against the bread ration in Petrograd. The assumption was that the strike was similarly anti-Bolshevik, and the workers would support the sailors' rebellion. In fact, the industrial struggle was coming to an end, and the Petrograd workers supported the Bolshevik repression of the Kronstadt uprising.
The following day, 1 March, at a mass meeting of sailors and soldiers in the town of Kronstadt some 15,000 people met to hear two high ranking Bolshevik officials, Kalinin and Kuzmin, sent from nearby Petrograd to attempt to appease the revolt. Zinoviev, in charge of the negotiations, did not get to Kronstadt because his physical safety was threatened.
The atmosphere was such that there was in fact little basis for constructive discussion or negotiation. The meeting degenerated, with the speakers literally unable to finish even a sentence without interruption and heckling, whistling and catcalls.
The programme was put to a vote, and only the two Bolshevik delegates and Vasiliev, the leader of the Kronstadt branch of the Bolsheviks, voted against it. All others voted for it, including recently recruited peasant members of the party.
Kalinin left the island. Kuzmin stayed to address a meeting the next day, already scheduled as the occasion for the re-election of delegates to the Kronstadt Soviet. Some 300 delegates were in attendance. The meeting was full of irregularities, including a sailors' guard at the doors and the denial of party members' usual role in chairing the proceedings.
Kuzmin and Vasiliev addressed the meeting, and tried once again to explain the conditions which threatened the revolution within and without. They implored the rebels to retreat. If they did not, they were warned the Bolsheviks would repress them militarily.
Amidst heckling and jeering the two spokesmen and a Communist official named Korshonov, whose jurisdiction included directorship of the two battleships which acted as headquarters for the rebel sailors' organising, were immediately arrested and removed from the hall.

A NON-ELECTED Provisional Revolutionary Committee charged with administrating the city took over. All military leaves were cancelled, a curfew was imposed and exit of any persons from the island was banned without special permission. It was a declaration of war against the Bolshevik state.
While this was not the largest or the most serious of the peasant rebellions, its strategic location of Kronstadt in the Gulf of Finland, with access to Petrograd, and its timing made it a coveted bridgehead for a regroupment of the White army.
Lenin's suspicion of an international conspiracy linked up with the Kronstadt events has been vindicated by the discovery of a handwritten memorandum preserved in the Columbia University Russian Archive, dated 1921 and marked 'Top Secret.' The document includes remarkably detailed information about the resources, personnel, arms and plans of the Kronstadt rebellion. It also details plans regarding White army and French government support for the Kronstadt sailors' March rebellion. Its title is 'Memorandum on the Question of Organising an Uprising in Kronstadt.'
The memorandum was part of a collection of documents written by an organisation called the National Centre, which originated at the beginning in 1918 as a self identified 'underground organisation formed in Russia for the struggle against the Bolsheviks.' After suffering military defeat and the arrest of many of its central members, the group reconstituted itself in exile by late 1920. General Wrangel, with a trained army of tens of thousands ready and waiting, was their principal military base of support. This memorandum was written between January and early February of 1921 by an agent of the National Centre in Finland.

THE LINKS with the White army are explicit: 'A breakdown in morale would be inevitable if the insurgent sailors were not to receive assurances of sympathy and support from the outside, in particular from the Russian Army commanded by General Wrangel. Further, the rising was seen as 'a very rare opportunity-an opportunity that probably will not be repeated-to seize Kronstadt and inflict upon Bolshevism the heaviest of blows, from which it may not recover.'
The Bolsheviks of course did not know of this memorandum. The point is that Lenin and the Bolshevik leadership were able to assess the balance of class forces with complete accuracy, and therefore made a similarly accurate assessment of the risks. Kronstadt was perceived as a step to counter-revolution not only by the Bolsheviks but by the White army and the world's ruling classes.
There was a second consideration regarding the timing of the repression. The Gulf of Finland is frozen from late November until the end of March or early April.
Two weeks after the Kronstadt rebellion the ice was due to melt, at which time the sailors' control of the ships would give them the strategic and military basis to overthrow the Bolshevik government. Holding out until the ice melted was identified as critical in the memorandum, after which point counter-revolution would be secured.
The rebellion was suppressed militarily after the appeal for the categorical lowering of arms was rejected by the sailors. The first attacks ended in failure for the Bolsheviks, but after a regroupment including the enlistment of 320 delegates from the Bolshevik Tenth Party Congress into the ranks, on 10 March the offensive broke through successfully. Some 8,000 Kronstadt rebels fled to Finland, where some, including Petrichenko, openly identified their links with the White army.
The events were a tragic necessity. But the tragedy would have been far greater if the Kronstadt rebellion had succeeded, and the already weakened Bolshevik state been crushed.


http://www.marxisme.dk/arkiv/bakan/90-krons.htm

[Comrade Akai]

The suppression and indeed murder of the anarchist groups is not justifiable within communist parameters, especially considering that most anarchists and communists want the same society in the end.

It would have been far better to invite them into the Party and work together with them.

[A.R.Amistad]

It would have been far better to invite them into the Party and work together with them.

Read the article, they did try to work with them and reach a compromise. Also, why would us Bolsheviks want to invite rabid and disorganized, counter-revolutionary anti-Semites into the party?

[red cat]

Everyone is ignoring the fact that theory and field work don't exactly match for some groups. There is no need for anarchists here to blindly support Makhno just because he claimed to be an anarchist.

[Zanthorus]

rabid and disorganized

The Makhnovists organised general/regional councils of soviets.


anti-Semites

It has already been pointed out earlier on in the thread that this is just slander. There were many high ranking Jews in the Makhnovists and Makhno furnished guns and ammunition to Jewish communities to help defend them against anti-semitism as well as holding speeches appealing to the masses to struggle against anti-semitism.

[Comrade Akai]

Read the article, they did try to work with them and reach a compromise. Also, why would us Bolsheviks want to invite rabid and disorganized, counter-revolutionary anti-Semites into the party?

I admit that I did not read the article.

Wait, okay...it seems I was misinformed. I thought these anarchists were Kropotkin types, not Randian Nazis.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Er no, as I have already quite clearly I don't think that there was anything particularly anarchist about the Krondstadt revolt.

Great then we are agreed. I was arguing that despite what happened which, as you said, showed the emerging problems within the Bolshevik party, it was not "to repress anarchists" as the OP suggested. This was the point I was making, not "whitewashing" anything.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Everyone is ignoring the fact that theory and field work don't exactly match for some groups. There is no need for anarchists here to blindly support Makhno just because he claimed to be an anarchist.

What is this based on? I didn't support the work of the Ukrainian Anarchists until I researched and looked into it.

[<Insert Username Here>]

The anarchists would have destroyed the state which became the CCCP. That would have been catastrophic.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Oh man I hope you are a troll.

[syndicat]

I think this, led to the support Makhno received because he was telling peasants to resist appropriations of grain by the red army.


This is trotskyist disinformation. in fact the opposite is true. The peasants of the Makhnovist zone sent carloads of grain to Petrograd initially.

also, keep in mind that "Makhnovist" is a misnomer. It was the revolutionary army of the Ukraine. it had been set up on the decision of a people's congress with delegates representing over a million people. the people's congresses (there were 4) elected the administrative council that was the revolutionary government for the revolutionary region.

when the Soviet government demobilized this army in 1921, they took records about land ownership of the militia members. only a tiny minority had much land. the great majority owned no land at all. most of the members of the army were farm laborers or urban workers.
so your class analysis is off.

the people's congresses of the revolutionary Ukraine were willing to coexist with the Soviet government. they wanted to be an autonomous region within it. at one point there was even a Bolshevik delegate elected to the administrative council of the revolutionary region. but this autonomy is what the Bolshevik government wouldn't accept.


The "Anarchists" of the CNT/FAI participated in the Popular Front government, therefore they are just as guilty of collaboration in the violence of the May Days as Trotsky was in the suppression of the Kronstadt insurrection.

Not really. The government lied to the CNT leaders in the government. They were told that the CNT could keep its arms and there would be no invasion of Barcelona with armed troops. But then they sent in thousands of heavily armed Rebublican National Guard paramilitary police to disarm the CNT.

Garcia Oliver and Montseny thought they were mediating. they were being used as pawns.

Trotsky and the Bolsheviks organized the army assault on Kronstadt. Because regular army troops refused to do their dirty work, they had to get party cadets and party officials to participate.

this is rather different.



Also, the CNT/FAI committed thousands of extrajudicial executions and assassinations before and during the war.

evidence? in fact the CNT-FAI was opposed to this. they prosecuted and executed a leader of the CNT building workers union in Barcelona for doing this.

the extrajudiicial killings that members of anarchist organizations took part in were in the early days mainly and were relatively spontaneous actions of an enraged population. they were not methodically organized or officially approved by the CNT or FAI.

we can see the difference here when we look at the conflict between the anarchists and the PCE over this during the Largo Caballero government. a week before the CNT joined the national government, guards at prisons in Madrid took 1000 right wing prisoners to the edge of town and machine gunned them, without any authorization. Garcia-Oliver, as minister of justice, appointed Melchior Rodriguez as head of prisons precisely to put an end to this sort of extrajudicial abuse. in March 1937 Rodriguez blew the whistle on a secret prison the PCE was running in Madrid, where it controlled the local government, and had imprisoned and tortured Left Socialists. this led Largo Caballero to disband the Madrid Junta de Defensa.

the extra-judicial killings in the early days, unorganized and not approved by the organizations, is entirely different than for example the work of the PCE through the SIM, as described first hand by Bill Herrick in "Jumping the Line" for example. and it certainly doesn't compare to



Furthermore, some "Anarchists" in Madrid participated in the right-wing Casado-Besteiro junta of surrender which shot Luis Barceló and other defencist officers after defeating the Communist troops in 1939.

it was a committee supported by right and left socialists, liberals and anarchists. that is, by everybody outside the PCE. calling it "right wing" is just rhetoric as this had little meaning in that context.



By participating in a right-wing coup to get revenge on the PCE, Cipriano Mera's anarchist troops helped hand Madrid over to Franco. So, even though the PCE cast the first stone doing Prieto's and Stalin's dirty-work, sectarian violence was committed by all tendencies.

you assume that the Republican army could have prevented Franco from taking Madrid. what is your evidence for this? in fact what Mera's army was trying to do was to prevent a PCE takeover, on the one hand, and a direct surrender by Negrin, on the other hand. because of PCE mismanagement of the war effort, the Republican army had been effectively destroyed as fighting force and was in no position to continue fighting. It was running out of ammunition, for one thing. Meanwhile, Franco at that moment was preparing a major assault. It's not likely this offensive could have been defeated by the Republican army. both the PCE and the anarchists at that time had essentially the same strategy: to buy enough time to dig in and prepare an underground resistance. the PCE's maneuverings didn't exactly help to facilitate this. Kleber is just repeating PCE propaganda line.

[black magick hustla]

I think the demcration line is not between leninists or anarchists. Leninist is a worthless term. To me, some platformist groups have identical politics to trotskyists. And some american anarchist groups adhere to a bizarre form of anarcho maoism.

[syndicat]

Leninists usually try to justify the suppression of libertarin leftists in the Russian revolution by reference either to participation of some anarcho-communists in the Left SR rebellion or expropriations by anarcho-communists, such as the theft of an automobile that gave the pretext for disarming the black guard and suppressing the Moscow Anarchist Federation.

what this fails to take into consideration is that there were significant differences in tactics and outlook between the Russian anarcho-communists, on the one hand, and the syndicalists and maximalists. The latter did not support armed rebellion as a tactic, and tried to do organizing with the factory committees, unions and soviets. The anarcho-communists in Russia (as distinguished from Ukraine) were advoctes of small group expropriation and didn't have the orientation to mass organizing of the syndicalists and maximalists or the Nabat federation in Ukraine.

hence the "armed rebellion" argument is fake, since the syndicalists and maximalists were suppressed anyway, despite their opposition to armed rebellion. and the Makhnovist movement originally said it would be content to be an autonomous zone within the soviet federation.


The leaders of the CNT-FAI, first of all, did what they could not to give in [join the government-S.D.]. They were undoubtedly inspired by their traditional opposition to all governmentalism... and all government parties. But in the face of the growing danger [fascist victory-S.D.] the greatest unification possible was needed. They thought up a revolutionary solution: the government should be replaced by a Defense Council of five members, five from the UGT, four from the republican parties, five members of the CNT. In this way they sought to make clear the supremacy of workers' syndical organizations over the political parties.

The revolutionary worker government proposal was driven by the radical wing of the CNT, and approved at a national plenum in Sept 1936. but it was veto'd by opposition of the Socialist and Communist parties. Durruti and the radical wing then proposed a strategy of the CNT taking power alone in the regions where it could, but couldn't get a majority of the union to agree to this. Hence joining the government, ostensibly to gain resources for their militias and collectivized industries. But, as Largo Caballero had said, his motivation was to bind this large independent force to the Republican state, and Montseny and Garcia Oliver played the expected role during the May Days events, opposing efforts at escalating the conflict.

[syndicat]

It's also not quite correct to say the libertarian left politics had nothing to do with the Kronstadt revolt. As Getzler shows in his history of the Kronstadt soviet, the libertarian left...syndicalists and maximalists...were the dominant political tendency in Kronstadt in 1917 and essentially the same ideas were expressed in 1921, and the leading spokesperson of the Kronstadt rebellion was a member of the maximalist union...a libertarian socialist group.

[jmlima]

...
Not really. The government lied to the CNT leaders in the government. They were told that the CNT could keep its arms and there would be no invasion of Barcelona with armed troops. But then they sent in thousands of heavily armed Rebublican National Guard paramilitary police to disarm the CNT.

Garcia Oliver and Montseny thought they were mediating. they were being used as pawns.

A couple of notes:

There was not a single 'heavily armed' force in the SCW, much less in the Republic. It's irrelevant for the point you're making, but still, it's an interesting historical tidbit.

Garcia Oliver cant really be put forward as naive. He knew what he was dealing with, and he knew the risks he was taking. He was playing a political game to try and keep the anarchists afloat amidst the increasing power of the increasingly Stalinist Republican Army. A role the anarchists were really not tailored to win.


...
evidence? in fact the CNT-FAI was opposed to this. they prosecuted and executed a leader of the CNT building workers union in Barcelona for doing this.

the extrajudiicial killings that members of anarchist organizations took part in were in the early days mainly and were relatively spontaneous actions of an enraged population. they were not methodically organized or officially approved by the CNT or FAI.
...

There's little point in trying to deny the obvious. Every single group in the Republica and in Franco's side used the early war period to settle accounts with the other factions. Call them mocos, pistoleros or whatever you want, it happened. What can be argued is that this was largely out of control of any centralized control within the several factions, and this is particularly true of the anarchists for obvious reasons. They were not so spontaneous, and some groups were quite organized and had definite targets and agendas. There was also a lot of impersonation that makes things rather more 'grey' to judge.

What happen once governments (on the republica side) or Franco's command was in place when organized butcheries happened (a la Badajoz) is a different story all together. And yes, the CNT / FAI leadership was not at all keen to be involved on this.

Mind you , I have huge admiration for Oliver (despite him being a lawyer :D ).

[jmlima]

...
because of PCE mismanagement of the war effort, the Republican army had been effectively destroyed as fighting force and was in no position to continue fighting. It was running out of ammunition, for one thing. ...

I'm happy to discuss this off line , to avoid hijacking the thread, but this is not strictly true.

Even before the PCE was in full swing of things the war effort had been severely damaged, and they are not to blame for it all, whatever mistakes they made, and were many, in the management they did of the war effort (to start with allowing Stalin ransacking the coffers). The war effort of the Republica was , like the Republica itself, full of noble intentions , but directed by a mix of individuals not suited at all to manage it. Unfortunately, like most noble intentions, they died alone and betrayed, PCE , Anarchists, Socialists, POUM, all of them.

[syndicat]

Garcia Oliver wasn't a lawyer. At the time the revolution broke out he was working in a paper factory. for most of his earlier life he'd worked as a waiter.

Garcia Oliver was certainly savvy, that is true. He didn't believe a showdown could be won by the revolutionary forces at that time...probably true. But Orwell in "Homage to Catalonia" does note that the new National Guard force brought to Barelona was far better armed than the troops at the front. A force armed with new carbines and submachine guns can be reasonably called "heavily armed". Had the entire CNT defense force decided to stand and fight, they probably could have defended themselves, due to numerical superiority. But a "deal" that wasn't really a deal had been negotiated.

[black magick hustla]

It's also not quite correct to say the libertarian left politics had nothing to do with the Kronstadt revolt. As Getzler shows in his history of the Kronstadt soviet, the libertarian left...syndicalists and maximalists...were the dominant political tendency in Kronstadt in 1917 and essentially the same ideas were expressed in 1921, and the leading spokesperson of the Kronstadt rebellion was a member of the maximalist union...a libertarian socialist group.

I think the talk of "libertarian socialism" in the time of kronstadt is a little out of place. The maximalists were not "libertarian socialists", they were the left wing of the SR. Anarchists have a tendency to call socialists they like "libertarian", like council communists.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think this, led to the support Makhno received because he was telling peasants to resist appropriations of grain by the red army.This is trotskyist disinformation. in fact the opposite is true. The peasants of the Makhnovist zone sent carloads of grain to Petrograd initially.

Oh my fucking lack of a god! What does this have to do with the point I was making - can you re-read and tell me what point I was making when I brought this up. I know I type fast and ramble - was I not clear?


The other part of this debate that is often ignored is that the Bolsheviks who had been able to rally other classes behind the idea of working class power through soviets were facing a collapse of this social coalition. First the working class was being decimated and so the Bolsheviks tried to step in and use their party as a substitute for the working class (which potentially and eventually led to internal counter-revolution and power remaining with a party, not the working class). Second, the class interests of the peasants who were the majority oppressed group began to diverge from the interests of working class people. I think this, led to the support Makhno received because he was telling peasants to resist appropriations of grain by the red army.

Overlooking some of these material factors invariably turns this debate into really a question of weather you think that the Bolsheviks were always secretly plotting an internal bureaucratic take-over or if you think the Bols were the infallible supporters of workers at all points and at all times.So, seriously, out of that you got "this is trotskyist disinformation" and nitpicked the example I used. Jesus fucking christ.

My point was not ANYTHING about Makhno other than that the breakup of peasant support for working class rule was eroding (as working class rule itself was falling apart). Fine you think I got my facts wrong - but your point only REINFORCES the argument I was making - the social coalition behind the revolution was falling apart.

Trotsyist disinformation bla bla duh. Fuck this debate - it's like trying to convince tea-partiers that Obama isn't socialist. You try and put out some reasonable rational arguments and people just quip: "trotskyist disinformation!" And no, it isn't just anarchists doing this.

THIS ISN'T TEAM SPORTS! There are some real political differences that should be debated but as far as I can tell this a lot of this discussion is just a bunch of liberal moral high-ground seeking and a lot of "reds secretly want to kill everyone" and "anarchists are counter-revolutionaries". It's bullshit and isn't even political.

[Jimmie Higgins]

By the way, has anyone taken on this question I asked many pages ago?

Could the Makhnovists have really fared better? What magic did they have that would have allowed a peasant rebellion turn out any differently than every other peasant rebellion in history - basically leadership under a warlord like the various peasant revolutions in dynastic China. Could the Makhnovists have defeated the white army single-handedly - attacks by imperialist countries? If they were somehow able to defeat the counter-revolutionary forces, how would they survive as an island-like peasant commune surrounded by semi-feudal and capitalist countries?

In fact the article I linked above argues that Machno, ironically, suffered many of the same problems that the Bolsheviks did but on a smaller scale. It also argues that while the Makhnovists were able to be fairly egalitarian at some points, at other points they had to operate in an autocratic manner and force conscription and appropriate supplies against the will of people.

Ideas and politics are important but they can not overcome objective material situations.

[syndicat]

I think the talk of "libertarian socialism" in the time of kronstadt is a little out of place. The maximalists were not "libertarian socialists", they were the left wing of the SR.

They had been expelled from the SR party at the time of the 1905-06 revolution. They were the libertarian left wing of the SRs at that time.

They were an anti-parliamentary socialist group who advocated a horizontal soviet republic, based on horizontal soviets like the one at Kronstadt, which was rooted in the assemblies in the workplaces and ships. Their views coincided with those of the anarcho-syndicalists. This is why the syndicalists and maximalists were in an alliance everywhere during the revolution. for example, the maximalists supported the syndicalists on the issue of defending the factory committees and the proposal of a national factory committee congress at the first All-Russian Trade Union Congress in Jan 1918.

so I think you're simply mistaken about the maximalists.

[syndicat]

JH: Maybe I overeacted. But the fact is, the ISO has published a constant series of articles, in both Socialist Worker and ISR, that engage in distortions and misinterpretations and outright mistakes, directed against social anarchism. they in fact do engage in a systematic disinformation campaign. so I have reason to be touchy on this subject.

as to what you said:


Second, the class interests of the peasants who were the majority oppressed group began to diverge from the interests of working class people. I think this, led to the support Makhno received because he was telling peasants to resist appropriations of grain by the red army.



the soviet formed in Makhno's home town, where he was elected presiident, and the initial people's congresses of the revolutionary region, were things created long before the Red army entered the Ukraine. so your thesis isn't plausible.

[Comrade Akai]

The anarchists would have destroyed the state which became the CCCP. That would have been catastrophic.

http://memegenerator.net/Stalin-Says/ImageMacro/808398/Stalin%20Says%20-%20Ive%20got%20an%20urge%20to%20purge.jpg

[Jimmie Higgins]

JH: Maybe I overeacted. But the fact is, the ISO has published a constant series of articles, in both Socialist Worker and ISR,Yes, I linked the article and a response in my first post so that people can read them and make up their own mind.


that engage in distortions and misinterpretations and outright mistakes, directed against social anarchism. they in fact do engage in a systematic disinformation campaign. so I have reason to be touchy on this subject.
You sound like a Stalinist, dude ("trotskyist distortions, plotting counter-revolutionaries, brah-hah-ha")! The ISO has no intention of or use for "disinformation" campaigns:lol:! I think the phrase you are looking for is "different political outlook and analysis". Which is fine, we don't have to agree on political issues or strategy and we don't. But saying that other groups or radicals are deliberately misleading people is a big accusation. The article pretty clearly states where it is getting it's information from and why it discounts some accounts by partisan historians. You don't have to believe that, the response from the Anarchist FAQ goes through why it thinks some of the ISR's sources are bad. Frankly there isn't that much in the way of sources and the whole looking for minutia to prove the Bolsheviks or the Machnovists or evil and plotting betrayals all along is politically useless.


the soviet formed in Makhno's home town, where he was elected presiident, and the initial people's congresses of the revolutionary region, were things created long before the Red army entered the Ukraine. so your thesis isn't plausible. You seem to think my argument is that the pesants were passively supporting the Bolsheviks and then suddenly switched to Machno like Democrats voting for Regan out of discontent - I must not be clear. My thesis that the peasants seeing their interests aligned with the workers was falling apart? I think the peasants did support the workers but as crisis after crisis happened and the working class was wiped out, as Bolsheviks focused on the war and then increasingly used the party instead of the working class as its base, I think the peasants began to not allign with the workers and the Bolsheviks and began to look for their immediate interests instead. So they participated with the Bolsheviks in the beginning but then it became more important to keep their own grain, not send people to war, and so on. I think this is what led to friction between Machno and the Bolsheviks and betrayals from the bolsheviks and so on. I don't think either side was sharpening knives and laughing maniacally, they were acting out of interests that, while once aligned, were diverging.


articles, in both Socialist Worker and ISR, that engage in distortions and misinterpretations and outright mistakes, directed against social anarchism.Ok, fine so you think the article had its facts wrong. I don't think we can resolve that by going through the minutia because basically we have 2 kinds of sources: Bolshevik records and Machnovist memoirs - so any info we get is going to be partisan in one way or another. So what do you think of the central questions raised by the ISR article? What about the questions I raise here:


Could the Makhnovists have really fared better? What magic did they have that would have allowed a peasant rebellion turn out any differently than every other peasant rebellion in history - basically leadership under a warlord like the various peasant revolutions in dynastic China. Could the Makhnovists have defeated the white army single-handedly - attacks by imperialist countries? If they were somehow able to defeat the counter-revolutionary forces, how would they survive as an island-like peasant commune surrounded by semi-feudal and capitalist countries?

[syndicat]

But saying that other groups or radicals are deliberately misleading people is a big accusation

an example of this is Paul D'Amato's repeated attempts to confuse individualist and anti-class struggle forms of anarchism with class struggle-oriented social anarchism. So in other words, he'll come up with an individualist or anti-class struggle anarchist...Bookchin, say...and then draw a sweeping conclusion about anarchism in general. To confuse anarcho-syndicalism with Bookchin or individualist anarchists is like me confusing you with Stalinists.

I wrote a lengthy reply to his columns here:

http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/socialanarchismvsleninism.htm

now, it's unreasonable of you to expect that the distortions I refute here are not going to rankle with social anarchists. It's not just about you "having a different political perspective."

and yes I did notice you're link to the Anarchist FAQ, thank you for that. One of the members of that group has written a long series of replies to articles about anarchism by ISO or UK SWP. his view is that the SWP & ISO do have a tendency to engage in persistent distortions. And I agree with this. There is a long history of Trotskyist disinformation about Spanish anarcho-syndicalism which was continued by the last article on this subject in ISR.

[Glenn Beck]

They had it coming.

[Comrade Akai]

Okay, let me ask you guys, because I don't know this. What exactly was the ideology of these anarchists? Were they like Kropotkin? Were they individualists? Or were they varied?

[syndicat]

Varied. The anarcho-communists in Russia proper were into small group expropriations, also they were involved in the worker militia, but didn't work in mass organizations like soviets or unions very much, altho some were part of the crew that overthrew the provisional government. this tendency existed mainly in St Petersburg and Moscow but some other towns also.

then there were the anarcho-syndicalists, who were into mass organizing in the more grassroots soviets, some of the more democratic unions like the bakers, also Moscow section of railway union, and especially in the factory committee movement. the syndicalists were highly critical of the anarcho-communists. syndicalists did not advocate armed rebellion against the soviet government but organizing among the masses.

A group who were in a close alliance with the syndicalists were the "maximalists" -- Union of Socialist Revolutionaries-Maximalist. advocated grassroots, horizontal soviets and unions, a federation of grassroots soviets, which they called a "Toiler's Republic."

The Nabat federation in Ukraine. this was a libertarian communist organization, involved in organizing soviets, peasant unions, other unions, and the building of the people's congresses and the formation of the revolutionary militia, headed by Makhno who was a member of this group.

[Comrade Akai]

Varied. The anarcho-communists in Russia proper were into small group expropriations, also they were involved in the worker militia, but didn't work in mass organizations like soviets or unions very much, altho some were part of the crew that overthrew the provisional government. this tendency existed mainly in St Petersburg and Moscow but some other towns also.

then there were the anarcho-syndicalists, who were into mass organizing in the more grassroots soviets, some of the more democratic unions like the bakers, also Moscow section of railway union, and especially in the factory committee movement.

A group who were in a close alliance with the syndicalists were the "maximalists" -- Union of Socialist Revolutionaries-Maximalist. advocated grassroots, horizontal soviets and unions, a federation of grassroots soviets, which they called a "Toiler's Republic."

The Nabat federation in Ukraine. this was a libertarian communist organization, involved in organizing soviets, peasant unions, other unions, and the building of the people's congresses and the formation of the revolutionary militia, headed by Makhno who was a member of this group.

So they were all leftists.

[syndicat]

yes of course. there were also some anarchists who joined the Bolshevik party, called "soviet anarchists".

[Comrade Akai]

yes of course. there were also some anarchists who joined the Bolshevik party, called "soviet anarchists".

In that case, I see absolutely no justification for their deaths. Leftists killing leftists? Fuck that. Even if they were disorganized, the Soviets should have helped them rather than killed them off.

[black magick hustla]

They had been expelled from the SR party at the time of the 1905-06 revolution. They were the libertarian left wing of the SRs at that time.

They were an anti-parliamentary socialist group who advocated a horizontal soviet republic, based on horizontal soviets like the one at Kronstadt, which was rooted in the assemblies in the workplaces and ships. Their views coincided with those of the anarcho-syndicalists. This is why the syndicalists and maximalists were in an alliance everywhere during the revolution. for example, the maximalists supported the syndicalists on the issue of defending the factory committees and the proposal of a national factory committee congress at the first All-Russian Trade Union Congress in Jan 1918.

so I think you're simply mistaken about the maximalists.

the left wing of the bolsheviks took similar positions. I would never call Myasnikov and the Democratic Centralists "libertarian socialists". They were communists of the bolshevik tradition.

[Chambered Word]

In that case, I see absolutely no justification for their deaths. Leftists killing leftists? Fuck that. Even if they were disorganized, the Soviets should have helped them rather than killed them off.

I think you need to read about this part of history more.

Interestingly you call yourself a 'libertarian' Maoist. Didn't Mao say something along the lines of 'revolution isn't a dinner party'? If I recall correctly, Trotskyists were murdered in Maoist China too.

[Comrade Akai]

I think you need to read about this part of history more.

Interestingly you call yourself a 'libertarian' Maoist. Didn't Mao say something along the lines of 'revolution isn't a dinner party'? If I recall correctly, Trotskyists were murdered in Maoist China too.

I disagree with that as well, and violently so.

[Chambered Word]

I disagree with that as well, and violently so.

With what part of what I said?

[Comrade Akai]

With what part of what I said?

The murdering of Trotskyists.

[Jimmie Higgins]

an example of this is Paul D'Amato's repeated attempts to confuse individualist and anti-class struggle forms of anarchism with class struggle-oriented social anarchism. So in other words, he'll come up with an individualist or anti-class struggle anarchist...Bookchin, say...and then draw a sweeping conclusion about anarchism in general. To confuse anarcho-syndicalism with Bookchin or individualist anarchists is like me confusing you with Stalinists.

I wrote a lengthy reply to his columns here:

http://www.uncanny.net/~wetzel/socialanarchismvsleninism.htm (http://www.uncanny.net/%7Ewetzel/socialanarchismvsleninism.htm)Fine, I still think it's simply a disagreement, and it's a bit paranoid to think that this is a deliberate attempt to slander all anarchists. D'Amato's articles were designed to take on some current hot topic like "carbon footprints" or whatever and give a Marxist spin to it, not to give an overview on the ever-changing and diverse tendencies of anarchism.

Hey, here's a link - he even says so himself:



GREG RODRIGUEZ, in a letter responding to my column on anarchism ("Refusing to be ruled over" (http://socialistworker.org/2009/02/27/refusing-to-be-ruled-over)) suggested that I "do not do enough here to defend or credit the social movements that anarchists have played a major role in" (see Greg's "Libertarian socialism, not lifestyle anarchism" (http://socialistworker.org/2009/03/05/views-brief)).
Columnist: Paul D'Amato
http://socialistworker.org/files/imagecache/80/files/images/PaulD%27Amato.jpg Paul D'Amato is managing editor of the International Socialist Review (http://www.isreview.org/) and author of The Meaning of Marxism (http://www.haymarketbooks.org/product_info.php?products_id=1604)





Fair enough. I did not mention the struggle for the eight-hour day in Chicago in the 1880s and the exemplary role of the Haymarket Martyrs; nor did I talk about the important struggles of the Industrial Workers of the World (who were not so much anarchists as syndicalists).
I did, however, say something about the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, anarchism's high water mark and the point at which it had the most influence in the class struggle.
My intention, however, was not to present a comprehensive history of anarchism or the role anarchists have played, but merely to explain why I started as an anarchist and ended up rejecting anarchism.


It has always been my experience in the ISO (and this is from an inside view, so I don't know how it is from the outside) to approach individual anarchist activists individually because of the range of different political outlooks and so on among anarchists. This is what I was taught and this is what I tell other members. In other words, in some places we have had good relationships with, say, members of the new SDS whereas in other areas we have been red-baited and attacked by SDS members. I have personally worked in many coalitions with anarchists and the SW has highlighted and praised anarchists including the IWW's efforts to organize Starbucks workers for example.

We have different political outlooks and its fine and good to debate them - although I don't think there will be much change in our respective takes on some issued until new objective situations uphold or negate some political positions. But I think it's totally unproductive to approach other radicals thinking that they are deliberately not telling the truth rather than just having a different outlook. With all the betrayals of the CPs during the cold war, it's understandable for people to be skeptical of all groups on the left, but I think there is a qualitative difference between pro-USSR groups back then whose priorities were with the Russian ruling class and the USSR's foreign policy interests and groups now whose priorities are building working class radicalism and militancy ground-up.

I hope people of various political traditions can continue to work together in coalitions when it helps to rebuild the general radical left. I know these squabbles are going to keep happening and debate is good, but I hope we can keep things political, not sectarian or in a team-sports mentality.

[syndicat]

the left wing of the bolsheviks took similar positions. I would never call Myasnikov and the Democratic Centralists "libertarian socialists". They were communists of the bolshevik tradition.

You'd have to explain more of what their viewpoint was. But it's not just a question of "positions" in the abstract but of alliances. If the syndicalists and maximalists worked persistently together in an alliance and worked for the same aims, why think they were not part of the same movement? The maximalists were also on the administrative council that ran the revolutionary army in Ukraine, that is, Makhno's army.

I think you're positing a distinction without a difference in the case of the maximalists. Anarchists writing about the Russian revolution always treated them as part of the libertarian left movement.

[syndicat]

it's a bit paranoid to think that this is a deliberate attempt to slander all anarchists.

I didn't say his articles were "a deliberate attempt to slander all anarchists." You're putting words in my mouth.

I said that his articles were "disinformation", and in a systematic way, in that the same sort of slant continues.

For example, he construes direct democracy to mean consensus decision-making. Within the social anarchist tradition..the main one historically...direct democracy was understood in terms of majority vote. The libertarian left built large syndicdalist unions historically. These were not run on the basis of "consensus decision making." The current fad for "consensus" in activist circles was first introduced back in the anti-nuke and anti-war movements of the '70s/'80s era by pacifists and Quakers, not anarchists. The anarchists who advocate this typically do so from the point of view of an individualist ideology.

It's not just a "disagreement" when another political tendency lies about what you believe. And my view here is shared broadly among other social anarchists. You say that the responses are to particular types of anarchists. I have no problem with stating criticisms of this or that type of anarchism. What I am objecting to is when a criticism of one type is then inferred to be fundamental to anarchism in general. It's not only D'Amato who does this. A number of articles in ISR follow this pattern.

I'm not one of those anarchists who reject any thought of working with Leninists and have done so on various occasions. I'm here just pointing out something that leads a lot of people to distrust the ISO.

[Devrim]

Fine, I still think it's simply a disagreement, and it's a bit paranoid to think that this is a deliberate attempt to slander all anarchists. D'Amato's articles were designed to take on some current hot topic like "carbon footprints" or whatever and give a Marxist spin to it, not to give an overview on the ever-changing and diverse tendencies of anarchism.

I am sorry I don't have that much faith in the political honest of the Cliff tendency organisations. Anarchists are people who are members of anarchist organisations. The ones that I am aware of in the US are NEFAC and the WSA. To include every hippy kid who has a shirt with a circled @ on it, is, in my opinion, a deliberate attempt to smear anarchists.

I am not an anarchist, and I have my own criticisms of them, but I think if you want to criticise at least be honest about it.

The equivalent of what is being done here is to write an article attacking Marxism and the Trotskyist organisations based on the crimes of Stalinism.

Also the article written by Abbie Bakan from the UK SWP's, Socialist Worker Review, is a shocking collection of lies and slander, which I will attempt to address over the weekend.

In my opinion there are two possibilities. Either these people have very little real knowledge of the history of the working class movement, or they are deliberately lying. I know that Tony Cliff for one certainly had an immense knowledge about the positions of the anarchists and the communist left in Russia because I can remember talking to him about it. As this was published whilst he was still alive, one would have to assume that he at least acquiesced to others lying if not actually encouraged it.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I didn't say his articles were "a deliberate attempt to slander all anarchists." You're putting words in my mouth.

I say that if it wasn't he has very little knowşdege of either anarchism or the working class movement in general. I would like to think that the latter were the case, but I suspect that it is a 'deliberate attempt to slander anarchists'.

Devrim

[syndicat]

But the ISO won't overtly discuss the positions of the WSA. I told d'Amato about my reply to his articles. it's easier to take pot shots at forms of anarchism that are weaker or confused.

[syndicat]

I say that if it wasn't he has very little knowşdege of either anarchism or the working class movement in general. I would like to think that the latter were the case, but I suspect that it is a 'deliberate attempt to slander anarchists'.



well, i would prefer to be careful about how I state it. I think d'Amato wants people to believe that the weaker forms of anarchism he criticizes are what there is to anarchism. it's not in the interests of ISO as an organization to bring people's attention to organizations like WSA or NEFAC or Amanecer.

d'Amato says he is aware of the distinction between individualist and social anarchism, in reply to a letter from someone sympathetic to Bookchin. He then launched into a critique of Bookchin which I agreed with to a large extent, but he won't point out that Bookchin was idiosyncratic in that he abandoned the traditional emphasis of social anarchism on "the self-emanicpation of the working class" through class/mass struggle.

on the other hand, i think JH is mistaken to label it merely a "disagreement." If i were trying to write an evaluation of ISO's politics, I would make an effort to first find out what they are and then direct my arguments against their actual views. But this is often not what ISO does in relation to anarchism.

The article on the Spanish revolution in ISR awhile back for example attributes to the Spanish anarchosyndicalists an oppostion to taking power...an old Trotskyist canard. This is not quite right. As Peirats says in his official history, it was clear throughout that period in all the CNT press that they aimed to have "all social power in the hands of the proletariat." It would be more accurate to say there was a long history of occasionally confused language on the question of "power" from anarchists.

The ISR article mistakenly supposes that the positions of Friends of Durruti were some sort of break with anarchosyndicalism. But in fact the FoD program is derived from the official CNT program as of Sept 1936. They wanted a return to that program.

In Sept 1936 the CNT proposed overthrowing the Republican state and creating a joint UGT-CNT defense council to run a unified militia, a kind of workers government. This didn't happen because it was veto'd by the Left Socialists and Communists, the two main Marxist tendencies in the revolution. the people who didn't want the working class to "take power" at that moment were the marxists, not the anarchists. the push for union power at that point was being driven by the radical tendency in the CNT. after the Socialists and Communists veto'd the proposal, there was apparently then a falling out among the various anarchist tendencies about what to do next.

The author may be unaware of the fact there were different political tendencies of anarchists inside the CNT, altho his notes list a very large number of works, which suggests that he is attempting to impose a pro-cooked Trot hypothesis on the data.

[Devrim]

well, i would prefer to be careful about how I state it. I think d'Amato wants people to believe that the weaker forms of anarchism he criticizes are what there is to anarchism. it's not in the interests of ISO as an organization to bring people's attention to organizations like WSA or NEFAC or Amanecer.

And do you think he knows of the existence of organisations such as NEFAC and the WSA (I have never heard of the other one)? Do you think he knows that these currents represent the historical continuity of anarchism?

Or do you think he is being disingenuous?

Devrim

[syndicat]

And do you think he knows of the existence of organisations such as NEFAC and the WSA (I have never heard of the other one)? Do you think he knows that these currents represent the historical continuity of anarchism?

Or do you think he is being disingenuous?



yes. I think he knows that organizations like WSA and NEFAC do represent the real continuity in social anarchism. And I think he doesn't want to direct people's attention to them precisely because they are not as susceptible to the easy critiques he throws out.

he might not know about Amanecer as they don't have a publication or website. They are a California organization (about 15 people) that reflects the higher proportion of workers of color here and are influenced by the South American social anarchist ideas developed by the Uruguayan FAU back in the '50s-'70s era. the FAU was a significant political organization in Uruguay at that time, with significant influence in the unions. somewhat anarcho-marxist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I didn't say his articles were "a deliberate attempt to slander all anarchists." You're putting words in my mouth.Ok, I apologize but that what I thought you were implying.


I said that his articles were "disinformation", and in a systematic way, in that the same sort of slant continues. I think even on anarchist sites you would find people arguing over this or that interpretation and not every shade of anarchist thought would be happy with what is put forward by another tendency.

The ISO is not anarchist and so I think as long as that is true, there is never going to be an ISO take on anarchism that satisfies anarchists. The "Refusing to be Ruled" article imo is a fairly sympathetic treatment of why people are drawn to real anarchist ideas as well as life-stylist ideas. There's a lot of bullshit on the web about counterrevolutionary anarchists (or trotskyists) which is over the top and not productive.


For example, he construes direct democracy to mean consensus decision-making. Within the social anarchist tradition..the main one historically...direct democracy was understood in terms of majority vote. Honestly I think this is nit-picking. In most of the anti-war coalitions I was in before and after joing the ISO, consensus-voting was a big issue in these coalitions. In political organizing I come across far more lifestylists than what I consider to be "true" anarchists. D'amato's article is geared toward understanding issues in activist organizing now, not a full analysis of the diverse history of anarchism.

Additionally when you read articles about the ISO's stance on protests in Iran or the nature of Cuba, you are probably in agreement with most of it, yet pro-cuba groups say that we are lieing and deliberately misleading people or even in league with imperialists. The ISO is far from infallable, we are trying to understand new developments and new political questions just like everyone else - in fact I think we have a much better take on organizing and working in coalitions than when I first joined. But in my experience we do try and present our political perspective honestly from our pov.


I'm not one of those anarchists who reject any thought of working with Leninists and have done so on various occasions. I'm here just pointing out something that leads a lot of people to distrust the ISO.Bottom line for me is that I think it's more important to have working relationships with other political traditions that emphasize working class centrality to revolution, working class self-emancipation, and "socialism from below". We are simply not going to agree on an analysis of what anarchism or Leninism means but I hope we can have political discussions without either intentionally lieing or assuming that a different view equals deliberate misrepresentation.

You're not guilty of this, and I know from all the really good and politcal posts I've read of your over the months that you are sincere, but honestly I think there are many people who distrust the ISO on the basis of being socialists/trotskyist/anti-state-capitalism first and then try and find evidence of lies to prove untrustworthyness. And not just the ISO but various left groups of all tendencies. Some of the red-baiting I've received over the years has come from people who didn't even know what positions we have but have taken the attitude of "You're a leninist, so you must be lieing". That's the sort of thing I find totally unproductive and a disservice to trying to rebuild working class radicalism. It plants the seeds of mistrust of radicals and we already have the mainstream press and politicians and academics telling people that anarchists and socialists are "outside agitators" who want to use workers for their own ends.

[The Essence Of Flame Is The Essence Of Change]

In that case, I see absolutely no justification for their deaths.Leftists killing leftists? Fuck that. Even if they were disorganized, the Soviets should have helped them rather than killed them off.
Aww, a new guy, how sweet:)

[The Essence Of Flame Is The Essence Of Change]

Btw this topic has become a bit derailed or more precisely, scattered.There is a discussion about the Makhnovtchina, a discussion about Anarchist Catalonia and a discussion about the Kronstandt Insurrection all in 3 pages.Maybe a mod could split some posts to these 3 categories or at least remove some of the more derailed ones in order to keep the conversation on the leninist's justifications?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I am sorry I don't have that much faith in the political honest of the Cliff tendency organisations.Case in point. I disagree politically - so whatever you say must be a lie.

[Jimmie Higgins]

yes. I think he knows that organizations like WSA and NEFAC do represent the real continuity in social anarchism. And I think he doesn't want to direct people's attention to them precisely because they are not as susceptible to the easy critiques he throws out.Yet although we have a political disagreement with syndicalism as a sole-strategy for workers and the IWW:

http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/17/standing-up-to-starbucks (http://socialistworker.org/2009/04/17/standing-up-to-starbucks)

There's a fucking link on the page to the IWW and how to join the Starbucks worker's union.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Btw this topic has become a bit derailed or more precisely, scattered.There is a discussion about the Makhnovtchina, a discussion about Anarchist Catalonia and a discussion about the Kronstandt Insurrection all in 3 pages.Maybe a mod could split some posts to these 3 categories or at least remove some of the more derailed ones in order to keep the conversation on the leninist's justifications?Ok, I'll end my participation in this derailment :lol: - if comrades would like to continue, we can discuss this in messages or you can set up a new thread.

[Elfcat]

As far as attitudes toward Jews are concerned, (being someone with Jewish ancestry from the areas of Ekatrinaslav and Dnieperpetrovsk these things pricked up my eyes) my readings so far on Makhno and the Black Army seems to indicate that they took great delight in killing Jew-haters, that one of their favorite targets was the patently Jew-hating Anton Denikin and his white army in the Ukraine.

[Alaric]

The Kronstadt mutiny obviously reflected mass discontent of the worker, soldier, and peasant masses with War Communism and other policies of the Bolshevik regime. Their criticisms, like those the Hébertists made of Robespierre, were mainly justified proletarian demands. The Bolsheviks' response was likewise despotic. But the government's options in dealing with the rebels were severely constrained by wartime considerations.

According to Wikipedia the revolt was basically responsible for the end of WC and start of NEP, and the ban on factions in the RCP(B). The ban on factions was obviously a huge mistake since it did not actually prevent the formation of factions, it just facilitated the bureaucratic expulsion of groups who represented the proletariat.

With Japanese troops still enforcing whiteguard rule in the Soviet Far East, and Red troops fighting monarchists for control of Mongolia and Central Asia, Lenin and Trotsky didn't think they had a choice but to suppress the mutiny, and do so swiftly and with a show of force so as to discourage similar actions and maintain war production.

The Bolsheviks wanted to prolong the existence of the workers' state by any means necessary, even if that conflicted with the temporary interests of Russian workers. This was obviously contradictory. It's only justifiable in the context of the first four Congresses of the Comintern, when the USSR saw itself as incapable of building socialism alone and was devoted to the world revolution. Once that had been abandoned, the state existed only for itself, supposedly moving toward socialism (or communism) in a single country, and the cyclical logic of self-preservation gave the state the right to exploit and murder the workers - not for the needs of war production against invaders and White Guards, but for the perpetual enrichment of corrupt bureaucratic fat cats - until it transitioned back into an outright capitalist state, complete with Tsarist tricolor.

In retrospect, the executions probably dealt a crushing blow to the already-decimated layer of revolutionary workers who had accomplished the October Revolution, and that may be partly why Trotsky was not able to rally mass proletarian support for the Left Opposition within the military-bureaucratic apparatus which the proletariat had created only to be enslaved by. Like Robespierre, he had been forced by events stemming from the unexpected isolation of the revolution to purge the most radical representatives of his own class, his closest ally had died from wounds inflicted by an assassin, and thus, nobody would come to his aid against the Right when they took him down.

The Kronstadt mutiny gives important lessons to communists who lean to either side. The more radical ones should be cautious about using the foolish and often suicidal tactic of armed protest which forces the hand of whoever it's used against. Leninists should also take note that heads chopped off don't grow back, and the logic of a state that exists to preserve itself can be taken to an extreme of being used as justification for reactionary backsliding, whether you want to call that "state capitalism," "Leninism," "Stalinism" or "revisionism." The mass execution of mutineers and the ban on factions were mistakes made by honest revolutionaries that harmed the revolution and should not be repeated in any circumstances.
Well put Comrade. We have to learn from our mistakes if we want to build a socialist future. To engage in endless brutal repression of dissent as being necessary to the survival of a state should make one stop and wonder if it's even worthwhile to preserve the state in a form that can use such an excuse.

[syndicat]

Yet although we have a political disagreement with syndicalism as a sole-strategy for workers and the IWW:


one of the person's quoted extensively is a member of my group, WSA. we don't advocate workplace organization as the "sole strategy for workers". our perspective is laid out here:

http://workersolidarity.org/?page_id=78

We advocate self-managed solidarity unionism as the form of workplace unionism we favor, but we have some varied ideas about how to develop a labor movement having this character, including things like rank and file resistance groups independent of the bureaucracy in places where the business unions exist, and grassroots worker centers in spheres where unionism isn't yet feasible. We also advocate community mass organization, and mass struggle in various sites outside the workplace...among tenants, public transit riders, teacher/parent alliances around the schools, environmental justice organizing and struggles, and so on.

The point is that we advocate mass struggle and the development of an mass social movement alliance as ultimately the vehicle for a transition out of capitalism. altho we see value in a revolutionary political organization -- that is what WSA is -- we don't advocate a "party" to "take state power" tho we do believe that in a revolutionary transition the working class and its mass social movement alliance needs to quickly consolidate its power, replacing the old state machine with popular power.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Well I didn't want to break my pledge to derail the thread any more... oh no, I am a liar!:lol:

one of the person's quoted extensively is a member of my group, WSA. we don't advocate workplace organization as the "sole strategy for workers". our perspective is laid out hereNo, I was using this as an example of how the ISO supports the constructive actions of groups it doesn't necessarily share the same political outlook with. I wasn't saying that your organization sees organizing in this way - but the IWW traditionally has this outlook to my knowledge.

I don't agree with some other groups like the IWW, but I think they beneficial for rebuilding a radical left rooted in the working class so I hope them all the best.

So that's why I get touchy when people say we are trying to deliberately mislead people - and we get if from Stalinists, liberals, everybody who disagrees with this or that point. In 2008 I was regularly harassed by a local liberal activist who said we were spreading lies about Obama - of course he has since stopped because Obama's presidency has proved what we (and the left in general) said about many of his positions.

The last thing I'll say is that most of these criticisms of the ISO's take on this or that history have been over contested details, but not the central ideas. Fine, details are contestable and maybe outright wrong, but the idea that the ISO is deliberately misleading people is laughable when you consider that the counter-points by anarchists to these articles were printed in the paper, magazine, and website. You'd think an organization deliberately trying to hide the truth about something would not want to publish a full response from the Anarchist FAQ in the ISR along with all the counter-sources for the sources the original author cited!

We can put the different arguments out there and people can judge for themselves which makes a better case. I'm all for competition over which ideas will be best for working class self-emancipation, I just don't think we should go around calling each-other liars or counter-revolutionaries or petty-bourgeois over political disagreements. It poisons the well and doesn't allow working people to get a clear understanding of the political differences or issues being debated.

[syndicat]

We can put the different arguments out there and people can judge for themselves which makes a better case. I'm all for competition over which ideas will be best for working class self-emancipation, I just don't think we should go around calling each-other liars or counter-revolutionaries or petty-bourgeois over political disagreements. It poisons the well and doesn't allow working people to get a clear understanding of the political differences or issues being debated.

well, i would agree with you on this point. I have a particular critique of Leninism, and I've put it in essays in public places (like on ZNet) to people can contest it if they like.

[Devrim]

I am sorry I don't have that much faith in the political honest of the Cliff tendency organisations. Case in point. I disagree politically - so whatever you say must be a lie.

There are lots of people that I disagree with on politics who I don't think are dishonest. In general my experience of the Cliff tendencies though is that they are quite dishonest, not just in an intellectual way, but down to the point of actually straight forward lies. I have know knowledge at all of the US ISO, and my knowledge of the Cliff tendency from first hand experience is basically limited to two countries, this one and the UK.

A classic example on here was a member of the SWP trying to suggest that a leaflet that had been produced by them had been done by a rival organisation on photo-shop to discredit them, but on a personal level I have experienced members of the SWP telling what they must have know to be lies, and have talked to ex-members who said that they were instructed to lie by the organisation on certain issues.

While as I previously said, I know nothing of your organisation, and am not accusing you of being a liar personally. I think it is a fair comment to remark on my personal impressions of the honesty of the current that you belong to.

Devrim

[Devrim]

On the article by Abbie Bakan from the English SWP:


Anti-semitism was vicious and rampant. The worst venom of the Kronstadt rebels was levelled against Trotsky and Zinoviev, treated as Jewish scapegoats among the Bolsheviks. Racism against the Jews was common among peasants from the Ukraine and the western borderlands, from where many of the Kronstadt rebels were recently recruited, and where the majority of the leadership of the revolt, the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee, were from. As one of the committee, Vershinin, announced when he came out on the ice on 8 March to state their demands to a Soviet detachment: 'Enough of your "hoorahs", and join with us to beat the Jews. It's their cursed domination that we workers and peasants have to endure.'
Further evidence of vicious anti-semitism is apparent in memoirs of a seaman involved in the Kronstadt rising. In a passage referring to the Bolshevik regime as the 'first Jewish republic', he called the Soviet government's ultimatum to retreat 'the ultimatum of the Jew Trotsky.'


I have never heard allegations of anti-Semitism at Kronstadt before. It certainly isn't quoted in the Bolshevik sources of the time. Of course, it is entirely possible that the quote used there is genuine. However if you try to goggle it, it is interesting to note that the only result that comes up, is this article. The same is true for the phrase 'the ultimatum of the Jew Trotsky'. The phrase 'first Jewish republic' brings up four results, though none of the other three relate to this. The idea that the memoirs of one sailor are evidence of anti-Semitism amongst thousands of workers is a bit dodgy anyway, but there seems to be no substance to these reports at all. There are of course no references.




During the 1917 revolution the Kronstadt sailors were among the most politically advanced of the entire working class movement. Trotsky had relied on them during the revolution to lead forces all across the country during the years of invasion and civil war. Kronstadt sailors were at the political centre of an army composed largely of peasant recruits who had shifted very quickly and rapidly from reactionary backgrounds to Bolshevism.
But, as the Kronstadt sailors fought and led, so were they killed and wounded, and replaced in the Baltic Fleet by conscripts from the rural districts. The Bolsheviks called them rather unaffectionately 'peasant lads in sailor suits.'
As in all of Russia, when the civil war came to an end, the vanguard of the working class, the ones who had fought in the centre of the Red Army, were gone.
By 1921 more than three quarters of the sailors in the Baltic Fleet stationed at Kronstadt were recent recruits of peasant origin. This was a reversal of the situation in 1917, when the majority were recruited from the industrial centre of Petrograd, the heart of the workers' revolution in Russia.
Petrichenko, the leader of the uprising of March 1921, was himself a Ukrainian peasant, and later acknowledged that many of his fellow mutineers were peasants from the south who were in sympathy with the peasant opposition movement against the Bolsheviks.


The idea that the Kronstadt sailors were all peasants and that there was no continuity with the garrison of four years earlier is a common one. It has, however, been proven to be completely false:



... that the politicized Red sailor still predominated at Kronstadt at the end of 1920 is borne out by the hard statistical data available regarding the crews of the two major battleships, the Petropavlosk and the Sevastopol, both reknowned since 1917 for their revolutionary zeal and Bolshevik allegiance. Of 2,028 sailors whose years of enlistment are known, no less than 1,904 or 93.9% were recruited into the navy before and during the 1917 revolution, the largest group, 1,195, having joined in the years 1914-16. Only 137 sailors or 6.8% were recruited in the years 1918-21, including three who were conscripted in 1921, and they were the only ones who had not been there during the 1917 revolution. As for the sailors of the Baltic Fleet in general (and that included the Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol), of those serving on 1 January 1921 at least 75.5% are likely to have been drafted from Great Russian areas (mainly central Russia and the Volga area), some 10% from the Ukraine and 9% from Finland, Latvia and Poland.If we take this information as being representative of the Kronstadt rebels as a whole it would suggest that 59% of the sailors had been there since at least 1916 whilst 93.9% had been there at the time of the October revolution, hardly a great change in the composition of the garrison from when it was the ‘stronghold of the revolution’ in 1917.

Of course facts based on hard evidence completely disprove the claims of this author, who again offered absolutely no evidence to back up his assertions.


His claims about Petrichenko being a Ukrainian peasant are equally untrue. It is true that he was born in a village and was the children of peasants. However, he moved to a city at the age of two, and before being called up too military service worked in the local ironworks as a metal worker.



The demands of the Kronstadt sailors reflected the ideas of the most backward section of the peasantry.


I think that it is worth repeating the demands of the Kronstadt Soviet in full here:




1. In view of the fact that the present Soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, to immediately hold new elections to the Soviets by secret ballot, with freedom of pre-election agitation for all workers and peasants.
2. Freedom of speech and press for workers and peasants, anarchists and left socialist parties.
3. Freedom of assembly of both trade unions and peasant associations.
4. To convene not later than March 10th, 1921 a non-party Conference of workers, soldiers and sailors of the city of Petrograd, of Kronstadt, and of Petrograd province.
5. To free all political prisoners of socialist parties, and also all workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with worker and peasant movements.
6. To elect a Commission for the review of the cases of those held in prisons and concentration camps.
7. To abolish all POLITOTDELS, since no single party should be able to have such privileges for the propaganda of its ideas and receive from the state the means for these ends. In their place must be established locally elected cultural-educational commissions, for which the state must provide resources.
8. To immediately remove all anti-smuggling roadblock detachments.
9. To equalize the rations of all laborers, with the exception of those in work injurious to health.
10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and also the various guards kept in factories and plants by the communists, and if such guards or detachments are needed, they can be chosen in military units from the companies, and in factories and plants by the discretion of the workers.
11. To give the peasants full control over their own land, to do as they wish, and also to keep cattle, which must be maintained and managed by their own strength, that is, without using hired labor.
12. We appeal to all military units, and also to the comrade cadets to lend their support to our resolution.
13. We demand that all resolutions be widely publicized in the press.
14. To appoint a travelling bureau for control.
15. To allow free handicraft manufacture by personal labor.



Points 11 and 15 do offer concessions to the peasantry. However, they talk about 'personal labour', and 'without using hired labour'. They are nothing compared to the concessions give to the peasantry and the bourgeoisie that were being discussed with the party itself at the time.



The adoption of a 15 point programme at a meeting on 28 February was fuelled by the strike wave taking place against the bread ration in Petrograd.


Not slanderous in anyway, but just wrong. The programme was adopted on 1st March. This is typical of the general attention to facts in this article.



In fact, the industrial struggle was coming to an end, and the Petrograd workers supported the Bolshevik repression of the Kronstadt uprising.


The strikes continued through out the Kronstadt rebellion. A fact acknowledged in all sources.




A NON-ELECTED Provisional Revolutionary Committee charged with administrating the city took over.


The Provisional Revolutionary Committee was in fact elected at a meeting held on the 2nd of March at the 'House of Education' attended by delegates from all sailor, soldier and worker organization.




THE LINKS with the White army are explicit: 'A breakdown in morale would be inevitable if the insurgent sailors were not to receive assurances of sympathy and support from the outside, in particular from the Russian Army commanded by General Wrangel. Further, the rising was seen as 'a very rare opportunity-an opportunity that probably will not be repeated-to seize Kronstadt and inflict upon Bolshevism the heaviest of blows, from which it may not recover.'


There were no links with the Whites, something that most honest Trotskyists admit today. No links have ever been proven.



The rebellion was suppressed militarily after the appeal for the categorical lowering of arms was rejected by the sailors. The first attacks ended in failure for the Bolsheviks, but after a regroupment including the enlistment of 320 delegates from the Bolshevik Tenth Party Congress into the ranks, on 10 March the offensive broke through successfully. Some 8,000 Kronstadt rebels fled to Finland, where some, including Petrichenko, openly identified their links with the White army.


Stepan Petrichenko did no such thing, and continued to be involved in left politics. He was eventually expelled from Finland in 1940 for supporting pro-Soviet groups during the Winter War.

Devrim

[ChrisK]

I have never heard allegations of anti-Semitism at Kronstadt before. It certainly isn't quoted in the Bolshevik sources of the time. Of course, it is entirely possible that the quote used there is genuine. However if you try to goggle it, it is interesting to note that the only result that comes up, is this article. The same is true for the phrase 'the ultimatum of the Jew Trotsky'. The phrase 'first Jewish republic' brings up four results, though none of the other three relate to this. The idea that the memoirs of one sailor are evidence of anti-Semitism amongst thousands of workers is a bit dodgy anyway, but there seems to be no substance to these reports at all. There are of course no references.

You apparantly haven't been paying attention if you've never heard of the anti-Semitism of the rebellion. I can't find my copy right now, but when I do, I'll post from Paul Avrich's book.


Points 11 and 15 do offer concessions to the peasantry. However, they talk about 'personal labour', and 'without using hired labour'. They are nothing compared to the concessions give to the peasantry and the bourgeoisie that were being discussed with the party itself at the time.

They may have been discussed, but that doesn't mean that they were inacted. Discussion isn't bad, but actually pushing for them is silly.


Not slanderous in anyway, but just wrong. The programme was adopted on 1st March. This is typical of the general attention to facts in this article.

Nit-picking much. It was written and agreed upon on February 28, it was adopted the next day March 1. I bet I could look through Anarchist articles and find someone getting a date wrong as well.


The strikes continued through out the Kronstadt rebellion. A fact acknowledged in all sources.

I'd like to see each and every source then.


The Provisional Revolutionary Committee was in fact elected at a meeting held on the 2nd of March at the 'House of Education' attended by delegates from all sailor, soldier and worker organization.

All I've seen on this issue was that they voted for its formation, but not its composisition.


There were no links with the Whites, something that most honest Trotskyists admit today. No links have ever been proven.

That quote comes from a secret document from France(?) that is the main evidence to support the idea that the whites were involved. Thus, this issue is up to interpretation.

[Devrim]

You apparantly haven't been paying attention if you've never heard of the anti-Semitism of the rebellion. I can't find my copy right now, but when I do, I'll post from Paul Avrich's book.


You are right. I have never read that book, but have just found it on-line.
http://home.comcast.net/~platypus1919/avrichpaul_kronstadt1921ex.pdf
It is in pdf so I can't quote the entire section. It pulls on the source mentioned a memoir written years later by one of the sailors, as I pointed out that can hardly be used to convict thousands of workers of anti-Semitism. He also states that the rebels denied any anti-Semitic prejudice.


They may have been discussed, but that doesn't mean that they were inacted. Discussion isn't bad, but actually pushing for them is silly.

The NEP as enacted had far more concessions to the peasantry than the Kronstadt programme argued for.


I'd like to see each and every source then.

Tell you what. I will quote you ten contemporary sources for every one you can find saying the opposite.


All I've seen on this issue was that they voted for its formation, but not its composisition.


On March 2nd of this year, delegates from all sailor, soldier and worker organizations gathered in the House of Education. It was proposed to form at this Conference a basis for new elections, in order to then enter into peaceful work on redesigning the Soviet structure. But in view of the fact that there were grounds to fear repression, and also due to threatening speeches by the representatives of authority, the Conference decided to form a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, to which to give all authority in governing the town and fortress.

I can't find an original source for this at the moment:


As the term of office of the Kronstadt soviet was about to expire, the mass meeting also decided to call a "Conference of Delegates" for March 2nd. This was to discuss the manner in which the new soviet elections would be held. This conference consisted of two delegates from the ship's crews, army units, the docks, workshops, trade unions and Soviet institutions. This meeting of 303 delegates endorsed the Petropavlovsk resolution and elected a five-person "Provisional Revolutionary Committee" (this was enlarged to 15 members two days later by another conference of delegates).


That quote comes from a secret document from France(?) that is the main evidence to support the idea that the whites were involved. Thus, this issue is up to interpretation.

I presume that you refer to the 'Memorandum on the Question of Organising an Uprising in Kronstadt' here. Averich commented on this:


Nothing has come to light to show that the Secret Memorandum was ever put into practice or that any links had existed between the emigres and the sailors before the revolt

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

There are lots of people that I disagree with on politics who I don't think are dishonest. In general my experience of the Cliff tendencies though is that they are quite dishonest, not just in an intellectual way, but down to the point of actually straight forward lies. I have know knowledge at all of the US ISO, and my knowledge of the Cliff tendency from first hand experience is basically limited to two countries, this one and the UK.



Trotskyism is in general though dishonest and opportunist. Trotsky was militantly opposed to the Worker's Opposition and went so far as to advocate the "militarization of labour" which entailed people being actually shot for turning up late or slacking on the job. Maybe a psychopath such as him was necessary to win the civil war, I dont know, but thats what he always was and remained. Than Trotskyites go protray him (particularly the Cliffites) as some almost Rosa Luxembourg figure who stood up against big, bad Stalin when infact if he had gotten into power he would have been a lot more authoritarian than Stalin.

[ComradeOm]

Trotskyism is in general though dishonest and opportunist. Trotsky was militantly opposed to the Worker's Opposition and went so far as to advocate the "militarization of labour" which entailed people being actually shot for turning up late or slacking on the job. Maybe a psychopath such as him was necessary to win the civil war, I dont know, but thats what he always was and remained. Than Trotskyites go protray him (particularly the Cliffites) as some almost Rosa Luxembourg figure who stood up against big, bad Stalin when infact if he had gotten into power he would have been a lot more authoritarian than Stalin.You are aware that at no point in this post have you shown that Trotsky was in any way dishonest or that all those who subscribe to his theories can be similarly branded as such? Even this guy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/new-article-shows-t132429/index.html) had a better stab at it

[Palingenisis]

You are aware that at no point in this post have you shown that Trotsky was in any way dishonest or that all those who subscribe to his theories can be similarly branded as such? Even this guy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/new-article-shows-t132429/index.html) had a better stab at it

I was talking about Trotskyism and not Trotsky himself...However that guy has shown the lengths Trotsky's bitterness pushed him too.

[comrade_cyanide444]

I'll just put out there that I dislike the repression of Anarchists that occurred by the hands of the Bolsheviks.... However it is quite understandable. When you stage a revolution there is massive chaos. In this chaos, the Bolsheviks wanted to maintain almost absolute power. Of course Anarchists did initially side with the Red Army, because Anarchy is closer to Socialism than it is to Imperialism. However, the Anarchists became unhappy that a state was after all forming.... So the became an enemy of the Bolsheviks.

It's very regrettable; I have supported Anarcho Communism to a loose extent for a while (Although I do believe in establishment of a state and a vanguard party).