Kronstadt Rebellion and the Bolsheviks

[Brotto Rühle]

The Kronstadt rebellion is seen as good, bad, or somewhere in between depending on who you ask. Well, I just want to know what bout their demands was so unreasonable?


Immediate new elections to the Soviets; the present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda for all workers and peasants before the elections.

Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties.

The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant associations.

The organisation, at the latest on 10 March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District.

The liberation of all political prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all imprisoned workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class and peasant organisations.
The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons and concentration camps.

The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces; no political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In place of the political section, various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State.

The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside.
The equalisation of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs.

The abolition of Party combat detachments in all military groups; the abolition of Party guards in factories and enterprises. If guards are required, they should be nominated, taking into account the views of the workers.

The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil, and of the right to own cattle, provided they look after them themselves and do not employ hired labour.

We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution.

We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution.

We demand the institution of mobile workers' control groups.

We demand that handicraft production be authorised, provided it does not utilise wage labour.

[Geiseric]

They called for the Soviets without the Bolsheviks which is the same as saying no Soviets at all. It was another wing of the counter revolution, led by former SRs who joined the bolsheviks after the revolution. It started a few months after collectivization was first attempted to the dismay of the middle and upper peasantry who petrichenko was allied with.

[Prof. Oblivion]

The Kronstadt rebellion is seen as good, bad, or somewhere in between depending on who you ask. Well, I just want to know what bout their demands was so unreasonable?

State power was being subverted.

[Brotto Rühle]

They called for the Soviets without the Bolsheviks which is the same as saying no Soviets at all. It was another wing of the counter revolution, led by former SRs who joined the bolsheviks after the revolution. It started a few months after collectivization was first attempted to the dismay of the middle and upper peasantry who petrichenko was allied with.

So, you believe in party control of the state, and party control/management over the means of production, and not workers co Hell/management? Do you believe all the non party workers should be excluded from councils? Whether they support the party or not?

[Brotto Rühle]

State power was being subverted.

Bolshevik party power was being subverted.

[Questionable]

Bolshevik party power was being subverted.

Which is the same as proletariat power being subverted, as the Bolsheviks were their leadership.

I'm pretty sure A Marxist Historian once posted a link explaining how the Kronstadt rebellion leadership had ties to the White Army. I will try to dig it up later.

[Sotionov]

A rebellion by the people against the rectionary state-capitalist tyrants.



What was the Kronstadt Rebellion?




1 Why is the Kronstadt rebellion important? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app1)
2 What was the context of the Kronstadt revolt? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app2)
3 What was the Kronstadt Programme? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app3)
4 Did the Kronstadt rebellion reflect "the exasperation of the peasantry"? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app4)
5 What lies did the Bolsheviks spread about Kronstadt? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app5)
6 Was the Kronstadt revolt a White plot? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app6)
7 What was the real relationship of Kronstadt to the Whites? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app7)
8 Did the rebellion involve new sailors? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app8)
9 Was Kronstadt different politically? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app9)
10 Why did the Petrograd workers not support Kronstadt? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app10)
11 Were the Whites a threat during the Kronstadt revolt? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app11)
12 Was the country too exhausted to allow soviet democracy? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app12)
13 Was there a real alternative to Kronstadt's "third revolution"? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app13)
14 How do modern day Trotskyists misrepresent Kronstadt? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app14)
15 What does Kronstadt tell us about Bolshevism? (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/append42.html#app15)

[Prof. Oblivion]

Bolshevik party power was being subverted.

Well, yeah. I wasn't taking a position either way, just stating the fact as to why Kronstadt was suppressed. From there, it's just posturing.

[Questionable]

Okay, I found a few good links on the subject that take a pro-Bolshevik stance (which is really the only stance one can fairly take when observing the objective facts). Here you go:

http://www.icl-fi.org/english/esp/59/kronstadt.html - Russian Archives Refute Anarchist Lies, Again

http://www.marxist.com/kronstadt-trotsky-was-right.htm - Kronstadt: Trotsky was right! New material from Soviet archives confirms Bolsheviks' position

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Kronstadt+Anti-Soviet+Rebellion+of+1921 - Kronstadt Anti-Soviet Rebellion of 1921

Note that these links are published by tendencies I don't subscribe to and thus may not fully express my ideological views.

[Leo]

They called for the Soviets without the Bolsheviks This is a lie. There were many Bolsheviks among the Kronstadt rebels. A large majority of the Kronstadt Section of the RCP(B) were among the rebels, as well as an overwhelming majority of communist sympathizers and candidates. It is important to remember what they had said at the time:


Comrade Communists, working in all Soviet departments, trade organizations, and factory committees, all economic organs, and also in the military units of the garrison, the PROVISIONAL BUREAU OF THE R.C.P. addresses you with a comradely appeal and urgent call of the following substance:

The moment currently being endured demands of us special caution, restraint and tact. Our party has not betrayed, and is not betraying, the working class, in the defense of which it has stood for many years. The historic course of political events requires us, in the interests of all laborers, to be at our places, and to carry on our daily work without any stoppages. We must remember that the smallest weakening or break in work, in any section of our economic life, brings about worse living conditions for the working class and peasantry.

May every comrade of our party be imbued with an understanding of the moment being endured. Do not believe the absurd rumors that Communist leaders are supposedly being shot, and that Communists are preparing for armed action in Kronstadt. They are spread by a clearly provocative element, which wishes to provoke bloodshed. These are lies and absurdities, and it is on such as these that the agents of the Entente, working to achieve the overthrow of Soviet power, wish to play.

We openly declare that our party, with weapon in hand, has and will defend all the achievements of the working class against the open and secret White Guards who wish the destruction of the Soviet power of workers and peasants.

The Provisional Bureau of the R.C.P recognizes new elections to the Soviet as necessary, and calls on all members of the R.C.P to take part in these new elections.

The Provisional Bureau of the R.C.P. calls on all members of the party to be at their places, and not to cause any obstruction to the measures being carried out by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. Restraint, discipline, calm and unity are the price of victory for the workers and peasants of the entire world against all the secret and open plots of the Entente.

Long live Soviet power!
Long live the Worldwide Union of Laborers!
Provisional Bureau of the Kronst. Organ. of the R.C.P.



Comrade rank and file Communists, look about, and you will see that we have entered a terrible swamp, led by a little bunch of Communist bureaucrats. Under a Communist mask, they have built warm nests for themselves in our Republic. I, as a Communist, call on you to drive from us those false Communists who incite us to fratricide. We rank and file Communists, in no way guilty, suffer the rebukes of our comrade non-party workers and peasants because of them. I look with horror on the situation which has been created.

Will the blood of our brothers really be spilled for the interests of those Communist bureaucrats? Comrades, come to your senses, and do not submit to the provocations of those Communist bureaucrats who push us to slaughter. Drive them away, for a true Communist must not limit his ideas. He must walk hand in hand with the entire laboring mass.



We, Communists of fort Rif, having discussed the current moment, and having heard the call of the Provisional Bureau of the R.C.P. in Kronstadt, have reached the following conclusion. For three whole years, great numbers of opportunists and careerists have poured into our party. As a result of this, bureaucratism and a criminal attitude toward the struggle with collapse have developed.

Our party has always placed before itself the work of struggling against all enemies of the proletariat and working class, and we now declare openly that we will also in the future, as honest sons of the people, defend the victories of the laborers. We will not allow a single secret or open White Guard to use the temporary, difficult situation of our Soviet Republic. At the first attempt to raise a hand against Soviet power we will be able to repulse to the counterrevolutionaries as necessary. We have already declared, and declare once again, that we are under the command of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which has given itself the goal of creating Soviets of the laboring and proletariat class.

Long live Soviet Power, the true defender of the rights of laborers!



We, Communists of the battleship Sevastopol, having discussed the current moment, arrived at the following conclusion: during the last three years of our party's existence, many self-seekers and careerists have poured into our ranks. Because of the above, these careerists have created a powerful bureaucratism in the country, and thereby have raised the workers and peasants against the party.

Our party has always placed as its purpose the struggle against all enemies of the proletariat and laboring class, and we now openly declare that we, as honest sons of the workers and peasants, will stand also in the future for the laborers' victories. We will not allow a single White Guard, either secret or open, to use the temporary, difficult situation of our Soviet Republic, and at the first attempt to raise a hand against Soviet power, we will know how the give the necessary repulse to the counterrevolutionary hydra of the Entente.

We have already declared and declare once again that we are under the command of the Kronstadt Provisional-Revolutionary Committee, which has given itself the goal of forming Soviets of the laboring and proletarian class.

Long live Soviet power, true defender of the rights of laborers!



The spontaneous striving of the broad laboring masses to make a reality of the bright ideals of the October revolution and of Soviet power has called forth an amazing rise in the spirits of those involved in the current revolutionary movement. From those few reports which make it through to Kronstadt it is possible to think that several of the Petrograd Communist comrades, maybe because they don't know the situation in Kronstadt, or maybe deliberately, are drawing the Kronstadt events in a completely different light.

To me personally, as a Communist, it is painful to hear my own party members repeat this slander, this fantasy, which the Petrograd papers write.

They are saying there that everything happening in Kronstadt is the work of White Guards and Entente spies with General Kozlovsky as head, and that Kronstadt has made an agreement with Finland and is ready to make war on Peter.

The movement which began in the Peter factories was unquestionably called out by lack of faith in the subverted Soviets, by the closing of factories and plants due to lack of heating material and the produce difficulties, and by the worker arrests connected with the movement. At that time, however, it was unnoticed in Kronstadt, which is better provided with heating material and produce, although there were rumors passed about what was happening in Petrograd.

These rumors took root on the Petropavlovsk. Her crew took up the demand to end arrests and release those already arrested, and added other demands.

Because of this, on March 1st, at the Garrison Meeting at Anchor Square, in the presence of Comrade Kalinin, President of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Comrade Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot, and almost the entire populace and garrison of the fortress, a resolution which had been worked out earlier was proposed, and passed unanimously (with the exception of Comrades Kalinin, Kuzmin and Vasiliev) without any kind of change at all.

The most fundamental and important point of this resolution was the demand for new elections to the Soviets, so that representatives from all left political parties, and anarchists also, could take part in them. This would have been done so that the Soviets would represent the actual power of the laborers themselves.

As for the other points of the resolution, like removing the anti-profiteer detachments, liberating political prisoners and so on, some of these demands have already been fulfilled under pressure from the masses. For example, there is an order by the Petrosoviet on removing the anti-profiteer detachments from all of Petrograd Province.

Based on this resolution, which had been affirmed by the entire populace and garrison of the fortress, the sailors of the Petropavlovsk proposed to the Presidium of the Soviet that it should be newly elected in the next couple of days. The next day, March 2nd that is, in accordance with an announcement by the Presidium of the Soviet, two delegates were chosen from each union and raikom, who were supposed to elect from among themselves a commission to hold new elections to the Soviet.

But in view of the fact that fully believable suspicions appeared among the gathered delegates, about a supposed threat of oppression by the Communists, and also in view of the threatening speeches by several delegates on the Communists' behalf, the Conference decided to elect a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and to also appoint it to organize the elections to the Soviet and the protection of the town.

From all this, we see that there was no kind of White Guard organization in this case, and that there couldn't be any, because everything that happened unfolded on grounds of the dissatisfaction of the broad masses with the existing Soviets, the majority of the representatives in which are Communists.

And once this is so, once we see that they no longer trust us, we have to say right away, not losing a day, "Citizens! Take state control in your own hands, but give us the right to take part in this work also, on the same basis as others." We have to do this in order to not earn still greater hatred from the people's masses, whose representatives we called ourselves.

All the repressions, executions and destruction which are brought by the war which the Communists have set up lead only to anger.

I am certain that comrade Communists who entered the party not because of a desire for power, careerism or any other self interest will agree with me.



The Communist Party has swelled greatly in numbers since it took power in its own hands, but it was lost a great deal in quality because of this. It sucked in a huge mass of people who entered it with the goal of receiving a cushy job. Self-seekers among the hangers-on finally brought us to the point where the ideological element in the party, which sincerely wanted to serve the laborers, became powerless to do anything. Besides that, during these 3 years the party leaders have become separated from the working masses, and long ago brought corruption and ideological confusion into the party.

The Tenth Party Congress, which was to have gathered in March, would undoubtably have recognized these differences of belief. The party might have split if its upper reaches wouldn't change their policies, which have led to complete contradiction with the entire worker and peasant masses. But events don't wait. The long muffled dissatisfaction of the masses has burst out, and has taken the character of a people's movement.

Besides that, in order to come to deal with with the masses' demands for new elections to the Soviets, which do not now express the will of the laborers, and about changing the policy toward the peasantry, the Communist bureaucrats decided to put the movement down with martial law and with executions of workers and peasants. Such a situation among the upper reaches of the party, which have placed in motion every possible repression and lie to hold on to power, cannot be made right by a lone person devoted to the ideal of Communism. Every honest Communist must break away from those who cannot find any other language for the workers and peasants than the language of cannons and bombs.

And how should this breaking away be done? Some comrades have done this by leaving the party completely, and becoming non-party comrades. But there are those who are tied strongly to the idea of the Communist Revolution, and who have drawn the Marxist worldview deeply into themselves. Such comrades, maintaining their party membership, must loudly declare that they will not take moral responsibility for that which the upper reaches of the party have done against the workers and peasants. The must honestly help in making right those deficiencies with which our Soviet Russia is so rich. Comrade Palanov has already acted in this way. I add my voice to his. May other comrade Communists also speak out like this.



I, an old seaman of the 1904 recruitment, having suffered all the bitter parts of life and currently an insignificant workingman for the good of the laborers, pass through the current moment with deep sorrow in my heart. For three years, the suffering worker, peasant and every kind of honest toiler believed in a bright future, believed in the leaders of the Communist Party who stand at the front.

But a split is occurring in the heights of the party, and it is echoing everywhere. The party has occupied itself with politics at the time when the end of the Civil War demands that it direct its work only into the channel of economic life, the channel of reconstructing the economy of the destroyed country.

In the localities, outrages have been committed by the proteges of the commissars and of other responsible workers. Complaints have been brought from far and wide against individual members of the party. The grumbling got stronger, and finally the suffering worker and peasant would not put up with it and revolted openly. The ruling party did not justify the faith of the masses, and Kronstadt broke away first.

Away with you, torture chambers and tortures! Enough of spilled blood; honest citizens don't want it! These are practices of butchers from the tsarist time of the past. In a free country they must not be. The peasant will understand that it is necessary to give the city bread even without commissars, and the worker in turn will strive to give the peasant everything necessary from his own production. The power which the laboring class has won for itself won't be given away to anyone. The laboring class will make it stronger, and direct it into a new channel of life.

Soviet power must be the expression of the will of all the laboring masses, without the rulership of any kind of political party. A great cause is being carried out, and Kronstadt has made the start, as vanguard of the Revolution. It let all the Republic understand that it is impossible to continue like this. There are no stinking plots against Soviet power here. All the laboring masses of Kronstadt see this. There are no White Guards at the head of the movement here, but only selfless citizens who have taken on their own shoulders the responsibility of carrying the cause to the end, with the slogan, "Victory or Death."

No one wanted blood, and all the rumors let out by the Communists that this is an open uprising against Soviet power aren't founded on anything. Life goes on normally. The call to bloodletting is being made by the upper reaches of the party in the person of Trotsky.

Blood has been spilled.

For what? For the dominion of the party?! No, enough of politics and blood. Leaders of the Communist Party, realize what you are doing! If you haven't come to an understanding among yourselves, fight however you want, but leave us in peace. We, the lowly, don't want that. We want to build our lives, to set right the country's destroyed economy so that the children won't be able to say of their fathers that they didn't do anything for the good of the younger generation.

Lets build our lives!

And you must give up your position to the laboring people without any bloodletting. Give your place at the wheel of government to the laborers. I openly declare, as a rank and file Communist, that our children must not perish under bombs thrown from airplanes by Trotsky's order.

Having respect for the idea of Communism, like every other pure idea, I as a rank and file member of the party, given to the service of the entire laboring class since a young age, openly say, "let all laborers breathe free."

There must not be any more of the dominion of any kind of party. Our Soviets must be the expressors of the will not of parties, but of the electors. It is necessary to create the will of the laboring masses. They seek truth, freedom and a better life, without oppression, torture chambers, executions and tortures.

I remain in spirit with the pure idea of Communism, since every pure idea is faith in a better future, and no on has the power to kill it. At the same time I declare that after three years in the party, I have seen the entire unfairness of the upper reaches of the party, which have contracted the disease of bureaucratism and become separated from the masses. Therefore, I take the stamp of party membership from myself, and in general do not intend to enter any other party from this time on. I worked, and want to continue to freely and honestly work, for the good of all the laborers of Soviet Russia, like every honest citizen.


Comrade young proletarians!

Comrade members of the Communist Youth League, each of us well knows the situation which has formed in the Republic, and in particular in Kronstadt. Each of us has seen and heard everything.

Comrades! After the October Revolution, when power fell into the hands of the now bankrupt Communist Party, many of us with our passionate youthful hearts, as is always the case with youth, aspired to something bright and new, to something which was to give us and our fathers and mothers a bright laboring life. We thought that the Communist Party would bring us to that bright future, and we strived for the party. For three years, we with our fathers and brothers spilled our young blood for the Communist Soviets.

For three years we lived in expectation of an improvement in our lives. But after all three years of struggle, cold and hunger we saw that our lives were not improving but worsening. We were convinced once and for all that the Communist Party, with all its commissars who feast during plague, chekists and anti-profiteer troops, would lead us to certain death.

Every aware comrade cannot and must not blame the Communist Party, as such. They will blame those Communists who, being in power, abused the people's faith, and who, seeing their distress, mercilessly robbed them. The patience of the laboring masses has been exhausted. The workers and sailors of Peter raised the banner of revolt against the oppressors, the Communists and chekists who have been set up by the Communist Soviets.

This uprising was put down by cadets and Communist forces, and hidden from us. We fed only on rumors. But these rumors, speaking of base acts by the Communist Party, which considers itself the expression of the people's will while at the same time executing masses of hungry and cold workers who have rebelled, were, as we all know, confirmed by our delegation of seaman. And Kronstadt arose.

At our giant meeting of the garrison and workers, and afterwards at the Conference of Delegates, the banner of uprising was lifted not by generals but by seamen, sailors and workers. Only sailors, workers and soldiers sit in our Rev. Com.

Kronstadt will again be "Red," the Communists write in their base and lying organs. We answer that our heroic Kronstadt was, is and will always be Red.

With their endless lying leaflets and articles they haven't closed but just still more opened our eyes to their crimes.

Comrades! The writer of these lines, although not having joined the party was and remains a Communist by conviction. But the acts of our Communist Party: executions of workers; murder of peaceful residents with bombs; deception of the people with words and press, are shameful and it is time to put an end to them!

To a unification of strengths. We must all, from the smallest to the greatest, rise in a comradely way to the defense of our dear freedom against the strong paws of the bureaucrat Communists.

Comrades, young proletarians, and in particular members of the Communist Youth League, whose eyes the Communist Party has closed for three years, all as one to the aid of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee!

All for free Red Soviets!

These declarations, articles and messages written by the Kronstadt communists were published in the Kronstadt Izvestia, which is full of similar texts. Of the 2,900 members of the Communist Party in Kronstadt, 784 were so disgusted that they officially resigned and only 327 of its members opposed the rebellion and were arrested. Many who died fighting in the streets, it is reported by Victor Serge, died shouting "Long live the world revolution". Some even shouted "Long live the Communist International" as they faced the firing squads of the Chekists.


led by former SRs who joined the bolsheviks after the revolution. It started a few months after collectivization was first attempted to the dismay of the middle and upper peasantry who petrichenko was allied with. Another absurd lie. There were SRs among the sailors, as there were Bolsheviks and and anarchists. However, politicized as they might have been, the Kronstadt sailors acted as revolutionary proletarians on their own, and re-established their own self-organization, in other words the Soviets. Petrichenko was no more than one of the influential sailors present at the time and the Kronstadt Revolt was no more a Middle-Upper Peasantry backed SR conspiracy that the October Revolution was a Judeo-German backed Bolshevik conspiracy.

For more information on the Kronstadt uprising, and its lessons I would suggest this article (http://en.internationalism.org/specialtexts/IR003_kron.htm).

[Questionable]

It is important to remember what they had said at the time:

But this is all demagogy, especially when you consider that communists in Kronstadt were arrested and nearly executed.


“In the panicked commotion a vote on something was rushed through. A few minutes later the chair of the meeting, Petrichenko, quieting down the meeting, announced that ‘The Revolutionary Committee, formed of the presidium and elected by you, declares: “All Communists present are to be seized and not to be released until the situation is clarified”.’ In two, three minutes, all Communists present were seized by armed sailors.” — quoted in Shchetinov,
Introduction to Kronstadt Tragedy





“The repression carried out by the PRC against those Communists who remained faithful to the communist revolution fully refutes the supposedly peaceful intentions of the rebels. Virtually all the minutes of the PRC sessions indicate that the struggle against the Communists still at large, and against those still in prison, remained an unrelenting focus of their attention. At the last phase, they even resorted to threats of field courts martial, in spite of their declared repeal of the death penalty.”
— Agranov, Report to Cheka Presidium, 5 April 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy


The Provisional Revolutionary Committee had planned this the night before, and many Kronstadt posts already knew ahead of time what would become of the communists.



Another absurd lie. There were SRs among the sailors, as there were Bolsheviks and and anarchists. However, politicized as they might have been, the Kronstadt sailors acted as revolutionary proletarians on their own, and re-established their own self-organization, in other words the Soviets.


It matters little what the ideological motivations of the participants were when objectively they were serving the interests of their White counter-revolutionist leadership.



Petrichenko was no more than one of the influential sailors present at the time


That's a tad bit of an understatement considering that he was in fact Chairman of the PRC.



the Kronstadt Revolt was no more a Middle-Upper Peasantry backed SR conspiracy that the October Revolution was a Judeo-German backed Bolshevik conspiracy.


Except there exists empirical evidence that the White Army had a large role in staging and direction the rebellion, while the claims of Bolshevism being a Jewish conspiracy is true nowhere except in the minds of far-rightists.

[Fourth Internationalist]

I don't know but...



https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Forum_Trolling


RevLeft

This site is full of pseudo-intellectual 18 year old Marxists and Anarchists, who advocate violent revolution and RAAAAAAAAAGE at sexism, and yet spend all their time talking about porn and /b/ in ChitChat, and who work at McDonalds. There are many common ways to troll RevLeft. Given the extraordinarily sectarian nature of the far left, and its historical and theoretical basis in shit nobody cares about, the denizens of RevLeft are very vulnerable to trolling.


Mention anything about Pol Pot in a positive light. This will actually cause more of a shitstorm than attacking any other leader, since these teenage revolutionaries know that in Pol Pot's regime, every single one of them would be dead. Ex.: "Pol Pot was a hero of communism! He was the only one who actually brought justice to the capitalists!"
Get involved in the endless debate between Stalinism and Trotskyism. It is easier to assume the side of the Stalinists, as you get to make some incredibly stupid arguments. Stalinists also are more likely to support Pol Pot. Common Stalinist tactics include dismissing all negative claims about Stalin as Nazi propaganda, endlessly use Godwin's Law to justify Stalin's actions, say that there is no proof whatsoever for any person to say that Stalin ever did anything bad ever. When the other side ever disputes any of these claims, call him a fascist and request he be banned. The same works for Mao but it isn't nearly as much fun. An example thread which didn't quite work.
Apply the same tactic with Anarchists and Leninists. If you intend to take on the anarchist role you'll have to read up the Spanish revolution, wave the bloody flag, and threaten physical violence against all who disagree with you. Say that you're from RAAN (Red & Anarchist Network) and that you're a hardassed motherfucker who don't take no shit. Taking on the role of the Leninists will involve becoming a pussy, but you get to make continuous use of the following buzzwords: counterrevolutionary, reactionary, liberal, bourgeois, and idealist. Say as many of them as you can as fast as you can in any area of the board, preferably while making a thread about the Troubles in Northern Ireland: a guaranteed flamebait.
Start a thread titled "Kronstadt" and watch the fun unfold.
Declare yourself one of the following (never in combination or you may be taken seriously): National Anarchist, Posadist, Third Worldist, Anarcho-Capitalist, Forkliftist. (Being or pretending to be a "National" "Anarchist" will get your sorry ass banned faster than you can say boo. Third Worldist's might also be banned post haste depending on the situation.)
Post anything against Anonymous. The srs revolutionaries of revleft are so sensitive when it comes to /b/tards that if you don't want to fuck moot and aren't full of faggotry yourself, then they'll accuse you of being a religious fundie, Hitler, or both. Bonus points for posing as a gaiafag and accusing /b/tards of being men conducting psyops against furries.
Also, be sure to ask to see Revleft's super-secret mod and admin forums. With how jealously the guard it for reasons of "security," they must have some good shit like a mountain of CP for the Party Van.
Pretend to be an old time member who forgot their username and then ask where the Commie Club (you could abbreviate as CC) is. Be sure to extol the virtues of user participation in forum administration. For bonus points say something about democracy and building a revolution online. The admins love that stuff.
There's a sizable anti-Stalin lobby in revleft; basically take a Stalinist approach to everything and you're assured to piss someone off without getting banned.
Ask them how they can fight for Islamic rights if they oppress women and are homophobic


Recent drama has lead to new users having their first ten posts be approved. Please don't troll for a least the first few posts. Also should be noted is that new users won't be able to see the Chit Chat forum. But that's OK as posts there don't count towards the post count. Tips to get your ten posts quickly without being banned:


Find a longish thread, quickly read the first page, and then a page from the middle somewhere. Paraphrase a post from the middle somewhere.
Start a thread about voting or unions (also a good method of trolling if done correctly, but to be a troll thread it requires a good knowledge of the view points of view).
Post in the "What are you listening to" thread in the music forum. Also, post a thread about how great Rage Against the Machine is. (Also, good trolling potential is to be had in saying how much you like Immortal Technique, or how much you hate him 'cause of his sexism.)

RevLeft
Note that a degree of subtlety and actual knowledge of how to troll is needed for RevLeft, as butthurt mods have to check all posts before the other faggots can actually see what you have to say. If one letter in your post is slightly away from their agreement, they will block your post and send you a warning.


Emphasis on Kronstadt is from me

[Leo]

But this is all demagogy, especially when you consider that communists in Kronstadt were arrested and nearly executed.

Except this is also a lie, and I actually gave the figures. Of the 2,900 members of the Communist Party in Kronstadt only 327 were arrested. Of course, Yuri Shchetinov's account itself is a lie, given the numbers.

The following statement too has been published in Kronstadt Izvestia: "The Kronstadt Communists' "great leaders" ran away disgracefully, like guilty little children. They saved their skins from the danger that the Provisional Revolutionary Committee would resort to that beloved means of extremists, the firing squad. It was a vain fear. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee takes revenge against no one, threatens no one. All the Kronstadt Communists are at liberty, and are unthreatened by any danger. Only those are restrained who tried to flee and were taken by the patrols. But even they are located in complete security, in a security which guarantees them against revenge by the populace for the "red terror." The Communists' families are inviolate, just as all citizens are inviolate."

Given the reflex of the Russian state at the time was to come up with lies after lies, it is not surprising that Stalinists and Trotskyists alike are repeating the same ones.

Victor Serge's account (http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1945/memoirs/ch04x.htm) is the only honest and credible account of Kronstadt written by someone who actually supported the supression of the revolt.


Except there exists empirical evidence that the White Army had a large role in staging and direction the rebellion while the claims of Bolshevism being a Jewish conspiracy is true nowhere except in the minds of far-rightists.

Actually, there exists no empirical evidence whatsoever that the White Army had any role in staging and direction the rebellion, no more than there exists any evidence that the October Revolution was staged and directed by the Judeo-German bankers. It appears that the minds of far-rightists can be strangely similar to the minds of Stalinists and Trotskyists when it comes to distorting history.

[Delenda Carthago]

I ll just leave this here...


NY Times announce the rebelion before it even happened.
https://athens.indymedia.org/local/webcast/uploads/ny_times_before_kronstadt_mutiny.pdf

(I remind you that the rebelion started at the 2nd of March and the conflict with the Red Army started at the 7th)


And a memorandum about the rebellion.
http://myths-of-anarchism.blogspot.gr/2009/05/blog-post.html

[Questionable]

Except this is also a lie

Not really. The commandant of the prison, Stanislov Shustov, put forth the idea of having the imprisoned communists executed, and had a machine gun set up outside the cell of 23 prisoners. The Red Army's advance of course stopped him.


The following statement too has been published in Kronstadt Izvestia

Again, this is all demagogy. I hesitate to use the official press organ of any organization as objective evidence. I'm really not impressed by all these walls of text you have of the Kronstadt rebels describing themselves as brave, heroic freedom fighters who love communism. I mean, obviously they weren't going to say "yeah we're here to restore the monarchy so uh support us i guess? whatever"


Actually, there exists no empirical evidence whatsoever that the White Army had any role in staging and direction the rebellion, no more than there exists any evidence that the October Revolution was staged and directed by the Judeo-German bankers.

This debate won't go anywhere if it's just you shouting "STALINIST LIES" to everything I say. If you want me to respond to this, you should go a little more in-depth about what is inconsistent regarding the line that the White Army directed the rebellion, because as of right now I'm not even sure what I'm supposedly lying about.

[Leo]

Not really. The commandant of the prison, Stanislov Shustov, put forth the idea of having the imprisoned communists executed, and had a machine gun set up outside the cell of 23 prisoners. The Red Army's advance of course stopped him.Yet, even by saying this you accept that it was a lie, given the fact that I gave the actual numbers - twice.


Again, this is all demagogy. I hesitate to use the official press organ of any organization as objective evidence. Yet you don't hesitate to use Bolshevik propaganda and Chekist statements as objective evidence.


I'm really not impressed by all these walls of text you have of the Kronstadt rebels describing themselves as brave, heroic freedom fighters who love communism. The "wall texts" written by the communists of Kronstadt, members of the party, but of course. I find your lack of being impressed quite telling.


I mean, obviously they weren't going to say "yeah we're here to restore the monarchy so uh support us i guess? whatever"Except, that was exactly what the Whites were saying, and they had managed to gather quite a lot of support. The sailors of Kronstadt owed no allegience to anyone, so were free to speak up exactly what they thought.

Your logic is true on the reverse though. Obviously the Bolshevik Party, and the Russian state were not going to say "yeah, these sailors who were our best buddies during october revolted, so uh, we're going to have to shoot them like rabbits and support us or whatever". Given the difficulties they were having in having the Red Army suppress the revolt, or even given the difficulties they were having in preventing the workers and peasants in the Red Army from deserting and joining the rebels, it wouldn't be a smart strategy.


This debate won't go anywhere if it's just you shouting "STALINIST LIES" to everything I say. Yet what am I to do if more or less everything you say are lies?


If you want me to respond to this, you should go a little more in-depth about what is inconsistent regarding the line that the White Army directed the rebellion, because as of right now I'm not even sure what I'm supposedly lying about.What is inconsistent is that what you say is entirely fictional. Your lie is the claim that the White Army directed the rebellion. It did not. It could not, because it was defeated at the time. It is an old lie, so I'll let Victor Serge give the rest of the response.


During the night of February 28-29, I was awakened by a phone call. "The Whites have taken Kronstadt", an anxious voice told me. "We are fully mobilized". It was Ilya Ionov, Zinoviev's brother-in-law. This was an appalling piece of news. If true, it meant that Petrograd itself would soon be lost.

"What Whites? Where did they come from? I can't believe it!"

"A general by the name of Kozlovski -"

"But what about our sailors? What about the Soviet? The Cheka? The workers at the Arsenal?"

"I've told you all I know."

Zinoviev was in conference with the Revolutionary Council of the Army, so I rushed over to the headquarters of the Third District Committee. Everybody was looking pretty grim. "It's fantastic. But it's true." "Well," I said, "we must mobilize everyone able to walk. Immediately!" Someone replied, evasively: "Yes, we must mobilize." But nothing could be done without instructions from the Petrograd Committee. Several comrades and I spent the rest of the night poring over a map of the Gulf of Finland. We got word that small-scale strikes were spreading through the suburbs. Whites in front of us, famine and strikes behind us! I left at dawn, and on my way out of the hotel I ran into one of the maids, quietly leaving the building with packages under her arm.

"Where to so early in the morning, grandmother? And with such a load?"

The old woman sighed:

"There's going to be trouble. You can feel it in the air. They will slit your throats, my poor boy, yours and the others' too. They'll steal everything that isn't nailed down, just as they did last time. So I'm packing off my belongings."

At intervals along the deserted streets there were little wall posters announcing treacherous seizure of Kronstadt by the counter-revolutionary general Kozlovski and his accomplices, and summoning the workers to arms. But even before I reached the District Committee headquarters I ran into several comrades who had already turned out, Mauser in hand, and they told me that the Kozlovski business was a contemptible lie: the Kronstadt sailors had mutinied, and what we were up against was a naval rebellion led by the Kronstadt Soviet. If anything, that was still more serious; and the worst of it was the paralyzing effect of the official lie upon us. For the party to lie to us this way was something new. "They had to do it because of the mood of the people," some of my acquaintances explained. But they were frightened too. The strike had become almost general. Nobody even knew whether the street-cars would run.

Later that day I had a talk with my friends in the French-speaking Communist group (I remember that Marcel Body and Georges Hellfer were both present). We decided not to take up arms—to fight neither against the hungry strikers nor against the exasperated sailors. In Vassili-Ostrov, in a street white with snow, I saw a crowd gather, mostly women. I watched it push its way slowly forward to mingle with the military-school cadets sent there to open up the approaches to the factories. Patiently, sadly, the crowd told the soldiers how hungry the people were, called them brothers, asked them for help. The cadets pulled bread out of their knapsacks and divided it up. Meanwhile, the Mensheviks and the Left Social Revolutionaries were blamed for the strike.

Leaflets distributed in the suburbs put forward the demands of the Kronstadt Soviet. They added up to a program for renewing the revolution. In brief: new elections for the Soviets, with secret ballot; freedom of speech and freedom of press for all revolutionary groups and parties; liberty for the trade-unions; liberation of all revolutionaries being held as political prisoners; no more official propaganda; no more requisitioning in the rural districts; freedom of employment for artisans; immediate withdrawal of the street patrols which were preventing free purchase of food supplies by the general public. The Kronstadt Soviet, the Kronstadt garrison, and the sailors of the First and Second Squadrons had rebelled to get that program accepted.

Little by little, the truth broke through the smoke screen laid down by the press, whose mendacity now knew no bounds. And that was our press, the press of our revolution, the first socialist press in history, therefore the first incorruptible, unbiased press in history. Even in the past, to be sure, it had now and then laid itself open, to some extent, to the charge of demagogy (of a warm, sincere kind, however) and had used violent language about its opponents. But in doing so it had stayed within the rules of the game, and had, in any case, acted understandably. Now, however, lying was its settled policy. 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 blond, 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!

Rumors played an ugly part in the whole business. With the official press carrying nothing but eulogies of the regime's successes, with the Cheka operating in the shadows, every moment brought its new, deadly rumor. Hard upon the news about the Petrograd strikes, word reached Kronstadt that the strikers were being arrested en masse, and that the troops were occupying the factories. That was untrue, or at least greatly exaggerated, although the Cheka, running true to form, had undoubtedly gone about making stupid arrests. (Most of these arrests were for short periods.) Hardly a day passed without my seeing Serge Zorin, the secretary of the Petrograd Committee. I knew, therefore, how many worries he had on his mind, and how determined he was not to adopt repressive measures against workers. I also knew that, in his opinion, persuasion was the only weapon that would prove effective in a situation of this kind, and how, to back up his opinion he was bringing in wagon-loads of foodstuffs. He told me, laughingly, that once he had found himself in a district where the Left. Social Revolutionaries had popularized the slogan: "Long Live the Constituent Assembly!"—which clearly was another way of saying "Down with Bolshevism!". "I announced", he went on, "the arrival of several wagons full of food. In the twinkling of an eye it turned the situation upside down."

In any case the Kronstadt uprising began as an act of solidarity with the Petrograd strikes, and as a result of rumors (about repressive measures) which were mostly without foundation.

Kalinin and Kouzmin, whose stupid blundering provoked the rebellion, were chiefly to blame. Kalinin, as chairman of the Republic's Executive, visited Kronstadt, and the garrison received him with music and shouts of welcome. But when the sailors stated their demands he called them traitors, accused them of thinking only of their own interests, and threatened merciless punishment. Kouzmin bellowed at them: the iron hand of dictatorship of the proletariat would strike down all infractions of discipline, every act of treason! The two of them were booed and kicked out—and the damage was done. It was probably Kalinin who, back in Petrograd, invented "the White general, Kozlovski". From the very first, when it would have been easy to patch up the differences, the Bolshevik leaders chose to use the big stick. We were to learn later that the delegation sent from Kronstadt to explain the issues at stake to the Soviet and people of Petrograd had got no further than a Cheka prison.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Kronstadt rebellion is seen as good, bad, or somewhere in between depending on who you ask. Well, I just want to know what bout their demands was so unreasonable?

"Immediate new elections to the Soviets; the present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda for all workers and peasants before the elections." - So because the sailors, mainly drawn from the peasant strata, in one military district decided that the legally convoked soviets no longer expressed the wishes of the "workers" and the peasants - note that an argument for this bizarre assertion is never provided - the Bolshevik government should have thrown resources into organising a new election and diverted Party workers from their tasks on the front line?

"Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties." - Note that none of the "left socialist" parties are specified. Any group of idiots can call themselves a socialist party, as anyone can verify. Indeed, the Mensheviks and the Right Esers, who formed the core of the White movement, called themselves socialists, as did the adventurist remnants of the old Left Eser group. All this demand amounts to is freedom for the Whites.

"The liberation of all political prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all imprisoned workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class and peasant organisations.
The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons and concentration camps." - See above.

"The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces; no political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In place of the political section, various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State." - Except that the political sections in the Red Army played a key role in keeping morale high, and the Bureau of Military Commissars had security functions.

"The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside." - In other words, the end of the food dictatorship and capitulation to free trade between the cities and the countryside.


Another absurd lie. There were SRs among the sailors, as there were Bolsheviks and and anarchists. However, politicized as they might have been, the Kronstadt sailors acted as revolutionary proletarians on their own, and re-established their own self-organization, in other words the Soviets. Petrichenko was no more than one of the influential sailors present at the time and the Kronstadt Revolt was no more a Middle-Upper Peasantry backed SR conspiracy that the October Revolution was a Judeo-German backed Bolshevik conspiracy.

Ah, so the fact that most of their demands concern the end of the food dictatorship and Military Communism, and that their leaders fled to Finland was simply a curious coincidence?


Victor Serge's account (http://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1945/memoirs/ch04x.htm) is the only honest and credible account of Kronstadt written by someone who actually supported the supression of the revolt.

Serge is an odd case. Originally an anarchist, I believe, he became a Bolshevik, participated in the Left Opposition and was then drawn into the swamp of centrism, the London Bureau where all renegades seemed to gather like dirt in the gutters. How is his version of events - full of "Lenin said that" and "the mutineers died shouting that" - written in 1945 - more credible than Trotsky's, for example?

Also the notion that the NEP fulfilled the economic demands of Kronstadt is a myth. The prodnalog did not mean free trade between the cities and the countryside, and there was no freedom of association for small commodity production.


Quote:
I mean, obviously they weren't going to say "yeah we're here to restore the monarchy so uh support us i guess? whatever"
Except, that was exactly what the Whites were saying, and they had managed to gather quite a lot of support.

Actually, that is a myth as well. The White Movement was never officially monarchist. It was formed by the Menshevik-led Union for the Salvation of Russia, and mostly consisted of former imperial officers, Kadets, Mensheviks and Esers. Not even the extreme right of the Whites - the supreme ruler Kolchak - ever openly supported a monarchy in Russia.

[Leo]

"Immediate new elections to the Soviets; the present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda for all workers and peasants before the elections." - So because the sailors, mainly drawn from the peasant strata, in one military district decided that the legally convoked soviets no longer expressed the wishes of the "workers" and the peasants - note that an argument for this bizarre assertion is never provided - the Bolshevik government should have thrown resources into organising a new election and diverted Party workers from their tasks on the front line?First of all, there was no need to provide the supposedly "bizzare" claim that the soviets didn't express the wishes of the workers and peasants, because even the Bolshevik leaders more or less accepted the fact that the soviets had become empty shells.

And yes, new elections for the soviets had to be fucking organized, and the Bolsheviks if they fucking wanted to even be on the soviets had to divert their energy and reasources to the new soviet elections because they had no fucking royal right to be on the soviets, and because a soviets is a council of elected and immediately revocable worker delegates.

Oh, and the claim that the social composition of Kronstadt had changed greatly since 1917 is simply another lie about Kronstadt. The sailors were no more of peasant background than the rest of the Russian working class. 75.5% of the sailors were drafted before 1918. Over 80% were from Great Russian areas, 10% from the Ukraine and 9% from Finland. The veteran politicised Red sailor still predominated in Kronstadt at the end of 1920.


"Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties." - Note that none of the "left socialist" parties are specified. Left Socialists meant the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Left SRs.


Any group of idiots can call themselves a socialist party, as anyone can verify. And the organization you sympathize with more than anyone, apparently.


Indeed, the Mensheviks and the Right Esers, who formed the core of the White movement, called themselves socialists, as did the adventurist remnants of the old Left Eser group. Nope, it merely meant the Left EsEr group.


"The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces; no political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In place of the political section, various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State." - Except that the political sections in the Red Army played a key role in keeping morale high, and the Bureau of Military Commissars had security functions.The various cultural groups, described in the demand, could well have kept morale high - arguably much higher than the former political sections.


"The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside." - In other words, the end of the food dictatorship and capitulation to free trade between the cities and the countryside.Yes, the demands of the Kronstadt rebels included a mild concession to poor peasants, who struggled to survive. The New Economic Policy, which was applied by the Russian government after the Kronstadt revolt was, in essence, a much larger concession to the middle and upper peasantry.


Ah, so the fact that most of their demands concern the end of the food dictatorship and Military Communism, and that their leaders fled to Finland was simply a curious coincidence?No, although the fact that Finland was the only place nearby to flee to was simply a coincidendce. Some of the sailors who wanted to avoid being murdered by firing squads escaping there wasn't obviously, simply because Finland was the only available destination.


Serge is an odd case. Originally an anarchist, I believe, he became a Bolshevik, participated in the Left Opposition and was then drawn into the swamp of centrism, the London Bureau where all renegades seemed to gather like dirt in the gutters. His background has nothing to do with his account. At the time, Serge was simply a member of the Bolshevik party.


How is his version of events - full of "Lenin said that" and "the mutineers died shouting that" - written in 1945 - more credible than Trotsky's, for example?Because Serge was in Petrograd when the events were happening and actively participated in the scenes he describes. His account is not full of "Lenin said that" and "the mutineers died shouting that" but included them, because Serge actually witnessed them - it is a memoir. Trotsky, on the other hand, was in Moscow, had, as he himself stated and based his "account" more or less entirely on the official lies of the Russian state at the time.

Here's what Serge himself has to say on this: "In a note published in America at the end of July Leon Trotsky has finally spelled out his responsibilities in the Kronstadt episode. The political responsibility, as he has always affirmed, belongs to the Central Committee of the Russian CP, which took the decision to “reduce the rebellion by force of arms if the fortress couldn’t be brought to surrender first by peaceful negotiations, and later by an ultimatum.” Trotsky adds: “I never spoke of that question [Kronstadt 1921], not that I have anything to hide but, on the contrary, precisely because I have nothing to say...Personally I didn’t participate at all in the crushing of the rebellion, nor in the repression that followed.” Trotsky recalls the differences that separated him from that time on with Zinoviev, the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet. “I remained,” he writes, “completely and demonstrably apart from this affair.” It would be only fair to stand by this explanation, after certain personal attacks aimed at Trotsky by bad faith, ignorance or sectarian spirit. For in history there is room to distinguish between general political responsibility and immediate personal responsibility. "I don’t know,” Trotsky writes again, “if there were unnecessary victims. I believe Dzerzhinsky more than his after-the-fact critics...The conclusions of Victor Serge on this point — third hand ones- are stripped of all value in my eyes...” Those of Dzerzhinsky are, for their part, seventh or ninth hand, for the chief of the Cheka didn’t go to Petrograd at that time and was only informed through hierarchical channels, about which there would be much to say (and Trotsky knows this better than anyone.) As for myself, living in Petrograd I lived among the leaders of the city. I know through eyewitnesses what the repression was. I visited anarchist comrades at the Chpalernaya Prison, imprisoned, by the way, against all good sense, who every night watched leave for the polygon the defeated of Kronstadt. I repeat, the repression was atrocious. According to Soviet historians, insurgent Kronstadt had at its disposal around 16,000 combatants. A few thousand succeeded in reaching Finland over the ice. The others were massacred in the hundreds, and more likely in the thousands, at the end of the combat or later. Where are Dzerzhinsky’s statistics, and what are they worth if they exist? The sole fact that a Trotsky, at the height of power, didn’t feel the need to inform himself with precision on this repression of an insurrectionary workers movement, the sole fact that Trotsky didn’t know what all ranking communists knew: that they had just committed through inhumanity a pointless crime against the proletariat and the peasants — this sole fact, I say, is gravely significant. It is in fact in the domain of repression that the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party committed, from the very beginning of the revolution, the gravest errors, those which were to most dangerously contribute to on one hand to the bureaucratization of the party and the state, and on the other to disarming the masses and, more particularly, the revolutionaries. It is about time that we realized this."


Also the notion that the NEP fulfilled the economic demands of Kronstadt is a myth. Nope, it went much beyond the economic demands of Kronstadt. The sailors had declared themselves against the employment of wage-labour in agriculture. Ante Ciliga has a quite sober analysis on this question: "The Kronstadt resolution declared for the opposite [of NEP] since it declared itself against the employment of wage-labour in agriculture and small industry. This resolution, and the movement underlying it, sought for a revolutionary alliance of the proletarian and peasant workers with the poorest sections of the country labourers, in order that the revolution might develop towards socialism. The NEP, on the other hand, was a union of bureaucrats with the upper layers of the village against the proletariat it was the alliance of State capitalism and private capitalism against socialism."


Actually, that is a myth as well. The White Movement was never officially monarchist. It was formed by the Menshevik-led Union for the Salvation of Russia, and mostly consisted of former imperial officers, Kadets, Mensheviks and Esers. Not even the extreme right of the Whites - the supreme ruler Kolchak - ever openly supported a monarchy in Russia. The White movement was a mixed bag which, as you say, did include Mensheviks, SRs and Kadets although its main bulk, certainly the bulk of its leaders, were former imperial officiers. And yes, certain White generals such as Denikin and Kornilov were openly against the restoration of the monarchy. Yet, some, such as Wrangel, didn't feel the need to hide fact that they were monarchists. Kolchak too had monarchist tendencies, but being the nominal head, he had to say things appealing to all the compoents of the Whites. General Diterikhs who lead the Eastern White Army, on the other hand, went as far as electing Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov as the new Tsar of Russia. The monarchists among the Whites didn't had the fact that they were monarchists.

[Geiseric]

So it was a mere matter of coincedence that Petrichenko, the leader of Kronstadt, was a former makhnovist who fought against both bolshevik and white forces in the ukraine?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

First of all, there was no need to provide the supposedly "bizzare" claim that the soviets didn't express the wishes of the workers and peasants, because even the Bolshevik leaders more or less accepted the fact that the soviets had become empty shells.

Even so, if someone - Whiteguard or Bolshevik - claims something, they really ought to back their claim up, particularly if they advocate a course of action that amounts to capitulation to the Whites and the interventionists.


And yes, new elections for the soviets had to be fucking organized, and the Bolsheviks if they fucking wanted to even be on the soviets had to divert their energy and reasources to the new soviet elections because they had no fucking royal right to be on the soviets, and because a soviets is a council of elected and immediately revocable worker delegates.

Again, this was in the middle of a civil war, which required resources to be directed to the front.


Oh, and the claim that the social composition of Kronstadt had changed greatly since 1917 is simply another lie about Kronstadt. The sailors were no more of peasant background than the rest of the Russian working class. 75.5% of the sailors were drafted before 1918. Over 80% were from Great Russian areas, 10% from the Ukraine and 9% from Finland. The veteran politicised Red sailor still predominated in Kronstadt at the end of 1920.

The ICL article comrade Questionable posted addresses this. The anarchist argument simply ignores the fact that not every sailor drafted before 1918 was politically active, proletarian, or a Bolshevik.


Left Socialists meant the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Left SRs.

The surely you can prove that - since the PLSR was usually called the "Left Eser" party. And in any case, the central committee of the PLSR was outlawed after it tried to bring Russia back into an imperialist war by individual terrorism, targeting Soviet officials in addition to German diplomatic personnel. The majority of the PLSR opposed this insane course of action and had reconstituted itself as the Party of Popular Communists - and was given full freedom of propaganda.


The various cultural groups, described in the demand, could well have kept morale high - arguably much higher than the former political sections.

How?


Yes, the demands of the Kronstadt rebels included a mild concession to poor peasants, who struggled to survive.

How is it a problem of the communists if the peasants struggle to survive? If the defense of the proletarian state demands that the peasants starve, so be it. Civil wars are not tea parties.


The New Economic Policy, which was applied by the Russian government after the Kronstadt revolt was, in essence, a much larger concession to the middle and upper peasantry.

Correct, but a concession under state supervision, in opposition to the Kronstadt plan of free trade between the cities and the countryside.


No, although the fact that Finland was the only place nearby to flee to was simply a coincidendce. Some of the sailors who wanted to avoid being murdered by firing squads escaping there wasn't obviously, simply because Finland was the only available destination.

And while the Finnish communists were being murdered, these mutineers - who were allegedly all proletarian communists with no connection to the Entente and the Whites - were left alone because of reasons.


His background has nothing to do with his account. At the time, Serge was simply a member of the Bolshevik party.

At the time of writing, Serge was a member of the London Bureau, and that fact alone casts suspicion on his account - he had a massive axe to grind against Trotsky and indeed against all forms of revolutionary communism.


Nope, it went much beyond the economic demands of Kronstadt. The sailors had declared themselves against the employment of wage-labour in agriculture. Ante Ciliga has a quite sober analysis on this question: "The Kronstadt resolution declared for the opposite [of NEP] since it declared itself against the employment of wage-labour in agriculture and small industry. This resolution, and the movement underlying it, sought for a revolutionary alliance of the proletarian and peasant workers with the poorest sections of the country labourers, in order that the revolution might develop towards socialism. The NEP, on the other hand, was a union of bureaucrats with the upper layers of the village against the proletariat it was the alliance of State capitalism and private capitalism against socialism."

Talk about going from bad to worse! If Serge was a suspicious character, Ciliga was a confirmed Menshevik sympathiser and Nazi. Cutting through all the ridiculous rhetoric and "proletarian and peasant workers" (peasant workers!), the paragraph contains one truth: that the NEP recognised the existence of wage labour in the countryside (it did not introduce it, it already existed under Military Communism). But those were the facts on the ground - introducing free trade would only exacerbate this division.


The White movement was a mixed bag which, as you say, did include Mensheviks, SRs and Kadets although its main bulk, certainly the bulk of its leaders, were former imperial officiers. And yes, certain White generals such as Denikin and Kornilov were openly against the restoration of the monarchy. Yet, some, such as Wrangel, didn't feel the need to hide fact that they were monarchists. Kolchak too had monarchist tendencies, but being the nominal head, he had to say things appealing to all the compoents of the Whites. General Diterikhs who lead the Eastern White Army, on the other hand, went as far as electing Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov as the new Tsar of Russia. The monarchists among the Whites didn't had the fact that they were monarchists.

Diterikhs proclaimed the monarchy restored only in the final months before his defeat. In any case, it is quite easy to find Black-Hundred, Progressist and Kadet sources criticising the Whites for hiding their monarchism in general. The idiotic story of the KomUch is a good example of how the Whiteguards hid their programme behind "socialist" pronouncements.

[Bostana]

The Kronstadt rebellion is seen as good, bad, or somewhere in between depending on who you ask. Well, I just want to know what bout their demands was so unreasonable?
Do you have any clue.....what you just started??

[baronci]

Which is the same as proletariat power being subverted, as the Bolsheviks were their leadership.

i'm not really too into arguing over things that happened a century ago but this is kind of a dumb thing to say. the russian working class was really not being "represented" by the Soviet state in any way, and the two entities found themselves at odds with each other constantly, Kronstadt just being one example. Russian proles who resisted the bolsheviks' policies were just shot to pieces and made to look like counter-revolutionaries. Not to mention that the power of the soviets was completely disbanded.

[Brotto Rühle]

Which is the same as proletariat power being subverted, as the Bolsheviks were their leadership.

I'm pretty sure A Marxist Historian once posted a link explaining how the Kronstadt rebellion leadership had ties to the White Army. I will try to dig it up later.

That's a total cop out, and totally wrong. Do you really consider "party power" the equivalent to proletarian class power? Clearly, you should read Marx.

[Geiseric]

That's a total cop out, and totally wrong. Do you really consider "party power" the equivalent to proletarian class power? Clearly, you should read Marx.

Marx didn't write much about kronstadt. But the Bolsheviks were voted in to the Soviets, I don't see how they could of cheated or something.

[Brotto Rühle]

Marx didn't write much about kronstadt. But the Bolsheviks were voted in to the Soviets, I don't see how they could of cheated or something.
The Bolsheviks actually carried out numerous armed coups of non-Bolshevik soviets. A lil like cheating.

Though, it's kind of irrelevant anyways, when the party itself no longer acts in a democratic fashion - i.e. banning factions.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Well we are not talking about just any naval base amidst just any civil war. We are talking KRONSTADT! here. So pour a stiff one and sit back because it begins yet again, the never resolved Kronstadt debate.


Well, yeah. I wasn't taking a position either way, just stating the fact as to why Kronstadt was suppressed. From there, it's just posturing.

[Fred]

Ironically, the opening of the Soviet Archives really did, once and for all, settle all this fucking nonesense about Kronstadt. I highly recommend the Spartacist article linked above. Of course, the big picture was that this group of disgruntled soldiers, led by an Anarchist, and some imperial naval officers, among others, had no kind of plan or program for the rest of the country that was practicable. The fact that France and England were sending money as fast as they could and that what was left of the imperial banking system was also sending cash, that should tell the indignant comrades something. A successful rebellion at Kronstadt would have meant counterrevolution, probably in a very short time.

Of course the Rebels used "socialist" verbiage. The leaders were smart if they started talking about overturning the gains of the revolution they would have gotten nowhere.

ONLY 300 Bolsheviks were jailed and threatened with execution? How high-minded and democratic. That was a taste of the "democracy" that would have been provided by the Kronstadters.

Also, the rebellion got no support from the Workers' Opposition group -- or any other sections of the Petrograd workers.

The most immediate danger that was posed, was opening up Petrograd for attack by imperialist navies. That was why the rebellion had to be put down so quickly. Otherwise, it did not pose more of threat than any of the many peasant and white rebellions still going on at the time.

IMO Kronstadt is a red herring.

[Brotto Rühle]

What...of...the...demands.

[Fred]

What...of...the...demands.

What of them? Soviets without Bolsheviks? Big problem. Free trade between countryside and cities? Another big problem. Basically, these were carefully worded demands to not arouse suspicions that the path that some of the leadership dearly wanted was counterrevolution. So much of the anti-Bolshevik propaganda related to this incident comes from recycled junk. Read the Spart article -- it is very good and comprehensive.

[Brotto Rühle]

What of them? Soviets without Bolsheviks? Big problem. Free trade between countryside and cities? Another big problem. Basically, these were carefully worded demands to not arouse suspicions that the path that some of the leadership dearly wanted was counterrevolution. So much of the anti-Bolshevik propaganda related to this incident comes from recycled junk. Read the Spart article -- it is very good and comprehensive.

It's this partyist view again, that if it isn't Bolshevik, it isn't right. Well, the party strayed far from the path of socialism and the proletariat in just a couple short years. So much for so lets with Bolsheviks.

[Fred]

It's this partyist view again, that if it isn't Bolshevik, it isn't right. Well, the party strayed far from the path of socialism and the proletariat in just a couple short years. So much for so lets with Bolsheviks.

Label them what you will. The party had bigger fish to fry than a local rebellion among disaffected sailors. The idea that they could somehow have instituted "socialism" under the prevailing conditions they were dealing with is very naive at best. The Bolsheviks were banking on the German Revolution to move things forward. The felt the urgent necessity to keep the Soviet Republic intact to provide support to revolutionary forces around the world. (WHICH THEY DID< BTW) When it became clear that German Revolution was not going to happen in the near future, the Triumvirs and eventually Stalin came to power.

[Captain Ahab]

The Spart article is trashy spart nonsense. It even uses confessions extracted by the Cheka to make its case. Nevermind that another author used the same documents the Sparts did and came to a different conclusion.
For a thorough debunking of most myths propagated by Trots around the event of Kronstadt I highly recommend reading the very thorough and well citationed Anarchist FAQ's section on it
http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQAppendix42
Fred's ignorance is best shown when he claims the sailors wanted soviets without bolsheviks.:laugh:

[Brotto Rühle]

Label them what you will. The party had bigger fish to fry than a local rebellion among disaffected sailors. The idea that they could somehow have instituted "socialism" under the prevailing conditions they were dealing with is very naive at best. The Bolsheviks were banking on the German Revolution to move things forward. The felt the urgent necessity to keep the Soviet Republic intact to provide support to revolutionary forces around the world. (WHICH THEY DID< BTW) When it became clear that German Revolution was not going to happen in the near future, the Triumvirs and eventually Stalin came to power.

I don't disagree that the failure of the German revolution had almost everything to do with the situation. My point is that it's false to claim that the coups of Soviets, the banning of factions, the banning of other parties had anything to do with the working class and everything to do with partyism.

[Karlorax]

I am no expert on this part of Soviet history, but I suspect they were suppressed mainly because they were breaking away as a renegade military group at a time when the revolution was struggling to survive, not suppressed simply because of a manifesto.


__________________

Currently reading, dare to join me? I am no Leading Light Communist, but I am studying their work for my MA thesis

Leading Light on Conspiracy Theory is Intelligent Design (http://llco.org/leading-light-on-conspiracy-theory-is-intelligent-design/)
Was Lin Biao guilty plotting a coup? Part 1 of 2 (draft) (http://llco.org/draft-was-lin-biao-guilty-plotting-a-coup-part-1-of-2/)
Revisiting Value and Exploitation (http://llco.org/revisiting-value-and-exploitation/)
What about the Gulag? Mao’s errors? Stalin’s? (http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/)

[Brutus]

The fact that they were calling for free elections to the soviets at a time when the proletariat was decimated due to the civil war means that their manifesto was opposed to proletarian class interests, therefore they were counter-revolutionary.

[Popular Front of Judea]

And who made that determination?


The fact that they were calling for free elections to the soviets at a time when the proletariat was decimated due to the civil war means that their manifesto was opposed to proletarian class interests, therefore they were counter-revolutionary.

[Art Vandelay]

And who made that determination?

Anyone with enough brain power to infer that the proletariat of '17 was more representative of the class interests of the proletariat, as opposed to the proletariat of '22, due to the absolute destruction of its ranks during the civil war.

[Comrade Chernov]

The Kronstadt sailors were the shock troops of the RSFSR during the civil war, and Lenin made promises which weren't kept. Therefore, the Kronstadt sailors got angry, because many felt the ideals of the revolution were being betrayed. It's really as simple as that.

[Fred]

The Kronstadt sailors were the shock troops of the RSFSR during the civil war, and Lenin made promises which weren't kept. Therefore, the Kronstadt sailors got angry, because many felt the ideals of the revolution were being betrayed. It's really as simple as that.

Yeah, only the sailors of Krondstadt in 1917 that wree the shock troops of the revolution, also left Kronstadt to fight on the front lines of the Civil War. The troops left over in 1921 were less political, had closer ties to the peasantry, and many were there precisely because it was not at the front. I know my anarchist friends are going to howl at this -- but it is well documented. The stats they use are not.

[Fred]

The Spart article is trashy spart nonsense. It even uses confessions extracted by the Cheka to make its case. Nevermind that another author used the same documents the Sparts did and came to a different conclusion.
For a thorough debunking of most myths propagated by Trots around the event of Kronstadt I highly recommend reading the very thorough and well citationed Anarchist FAQ's section on it
http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQAppendix42
Fred's ignorance is best shown when he claims the sailors wanted soviets without bolsheviks.:laugh:
I don't know, maybe a clue was the imprisonment of the 300 Bolsheviks on Kronstadt that did not go over to the insurgents. The leadership of the insurgency would have been more than happy to do that with the Bolsheviks on the mainland, no doubt.

[Fred]

Comrades can judge for themselves: Here are a couple of passages from the Spartacist article on Kronstadt:

As Lenin noted, “There was very little that was clear, definite and fully shaped” about the Kronstadt demands (“The Tax in Kind,” 21 April 1921). They included new elections to the soviets; no restrictions on the anarchist and left socialist parties; no controls on trade-union or peasant organizations; freeing Menshevik and SR prisoners and those arrested in recent rural and urban unrest; equalization of rations; and pivotally, the demand to “grant the peasants full freedom of action on all land as they wish, and the right to own cattle, which they should tend to themselves, i.e., without the use of hired labour” (March 1 Resolution; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy). Had this petty-bourgeois program of unrestricted trade and opposition to any economic planning actually been carried out, it would have rapidly generated a new capitalist class from among the most successful peasants, artisans and enterprise managers and opened the door to a return of the old capitalists and the imperialists.

The program was carefully crafted with the peasant prejudices of the sailors in mind. The mutineers demanded the abolition of the political departments and Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and of Communist patrols in the factories. The call for “all power to the soviets and not the parties” was simply petty-bourgeois demagogy designed to swindle the masses of sailors into supporting counterrevolution. In practice, it meant “Down with the Communists!” The more far-sighted adherents of counterrevolution understood that if the Communists were driven from power, whatever the slogans, it would be a short step to restoring capitalist rule. In the pages of his Paris-based newspaper, Constitutional Democrat (Kadet) leader Pavel Miliukov counseled his fellow reactionaries to accept the call, “Down with the Bolsheviks! Long live the Soviets!” As this would likely mean only a temporary passing of power to “the moderate Socialists,” argued the shrewd bourgeois Miliukov, “not only the Monarchists but other candidates for power living abroad have no rhyme or reason for being in a hurry” (Poslednie Novosti, 11 March 1921; quoted in Wright, “The Truth About Kronstadt”).

What could the demand for “free soviets” mean in the context of Soviet Russia in 1921? Many of the most advanced workers had fought in the Red Army and perished or been drafted into important administrative posts. With the factories decimated and deprived of their best elements, the soviets atrophied. The regime of workers democracy was preserved by the layer of cadre in the Communist Party.

The revolutionary-minded elements of all the socialist and anarchist tendencies had gone over to the Bolsheviks, either individually or in regroupments. In 1917, the anarchists had briefly enjoyed some influence among the more volatile elements of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison because of their militant posture against the capitalist Provisional Government. After the October Revolution, the best of the anarcho-syndicalists, like Bill Shatov, a Russian American who had been a prominent Wobbly in the U.S., sided with the Bolsheviks in defense of the workers revolution. Those who didn’t turned to criminality and terror against the workers state, from staging armed robberies to bombing Moscow Communist Party headquarters in 1919. The “socialist” parties that had joined the Provisional Government, the Mensheviks and Right SRs, were by 1921 empty shells and lackeys of counterrevolution. The Left SRs, after briefly serving in the Soviet government, joined in 1918 in underground terror against the workers state. The Mensheviks’ posture of abiding by Soviet legality was dropped at every chance of a capitalist overthrow of the Soviet republic.

In Petrograd the remnants of the SRs, Mensheviks and various anarchists banded together in an “Assembly of Plenipotentiaries of the Factories and Shops of Petrograd.” This shadowy, unelected bloc collaborated with the newly formed monarchist Petrograd Combat Organization (PCO), as the PCO itself asserted (PCO Report to Helsinki Department of National Center, no earlier than 28 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy). The PCO even printed the Mensheviks’ leaflets! On March 14, the Assembly issued a leaflet in solidarity with Kronstadt that said not one word about socialism or soviets, but instead called for an uprising against “the bloody communist regime” in the name of “all power to the people” (“Appeal to All Citizens, Workers, Red Army Soldiers and Sailors,” 14 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy).

Despite lies spun by the press of the mutineers claiming mass uprisings in Petrograd and Moscow, even Menshevik leader Fyodor Dan admitted in a 1922 book that “There were no plenipotentiaries” and that “the Kronstadt mutiny was not supported by the Petersburg workers in any way” (quoted in “The Mensheviks in the Kronstadt Mutiny,” Krasnaia Letopis’, 1931, No. 2). “The workers immediately felt that the Kronstadt mutineers stood on the opposite side of the barricades—and they supported the Soviet power,” explained Trotsky (“Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt,” 15 January 1938). It is noteworthy that even the wing of the Communist Party that most zealously sought to champion the immediate economic interests of the workers, the semi-syndicalist Workers Opposition, participated in the crushing of the Kronstadt uprising.

[Comrade Chernov]

Yeah, only the sailors of Krondstadt in 1917 that wree the shock troops of the revolution, also left Kronstadt to fight on the front lines of the Civil War. The troops left over in 1921 were less political, had closer ties to the peasantry, and many were there precisely because it was not at the front. I know my anarchist friends are going to howl at this -- but it is well documented. The stats they use are not.

I was of the understanding that the Kronstadt sailors only actually engaged in combat when called to do so. Maybe I've misunderstood? I just thought their main base of operations was at Kronstadt.

[SonofRage]

I'm so sick of having this debate. The Bolsheviks did enough fucked up things later that I don't need Kronstadt as additional evidence. Can we instead debate events that have relevancy for current conditions? How many Americans revolutionaries know more about the Russian Revolution than they do about the US Civil War?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[Popular Front of Judea]

I have to cop to that. Of course there is the coolness factor of armored trains. :grin:


How many Americans revolutionaries know more about the Russian Revolution than they do about the US Civil War?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[Popular Front of Judea]

I am more interested in the morning after the Kronstadt rebellion was put down. It must have been a bleak one. An economically, socially devastated country. No foreign assistance in sight. A long way from the optimistic assumptions of November 1917.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The Kronstadt sailors were the shock troops of the RSFSR during the civil war, and Lenin made promises which weren't kept. Therefore, the Kronstadt sailors got angry, because many felt the ideals of the revolution were being betrayed. It's really as simple as that.

Ah, the old "flower of the revolution" argument. Even if it were true - and it is not, as the Spartacist article demonstrates - what of it? Are people really arguing in favour of praetorian rule?

Actually, given that most people who raise the hue and cry about Kronstadt also support the "left" Esers, who tried to overthrow the republic using the Che-Ka, I suppose that they do support praetorian rule. Some libertarianism.

[Fred]

I was of the understanding that the Kronstadt sailors only actually engaged in combat when called to do so. Maybe I've misunderstood? I just thought their main base of operations was at Kronstadt.

I presume that they did. Only most of the action in the Civil War was not in the Baltic Sea, to say the least.

[The Feral Underclass]

Comrades can judge for themselves: Here are a couple of passages from the Spartacist article on Kronstadt:

As Lenin noted, “There was very little that was clear, definite and fully shaped” about the Kronstadt demands (“The Tax in Kind,” 21 April 1921). They included new elections to the soviets; no restrictions on the anarchist and left socialist parties; no controls on trade-union or peasant organizations; freeing Menshevik and SR prisoners and those arrested in recent rural and urban unrest; equalization of rations; and pivotally, the demand to “grant the peasants full freedom of action on all land as they wish, and the right to own cattle, which they should tend to themselves, i.e., without the use of hired labour” (March 1 Resolution; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy). Had this petty-bourgeois program of unrestricted trade and opposition to any economic planning actually been carried out, it would have rapidly generated a new capitalist class from among the most successful peasants, artisans and enterprise managers and opened the door to a return of the old capitalists and the imperialists.

The program was carefully crafted with the peasant prejudices of the sailors in mind. The mutineers demanded the abolition of the political departments and Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and of Communist patrols in the factories. The call for “all power to the soviets and not the parties” was simply petty-bourgeois demagogy designed to swindle the masses of sailors into supporting counterrevolution. In practice, it meant “Down with the Communists!” The more far-sighted adherents of counterrevolution understood that if the Communists were driven from power, whatever the slogans, it would be a short step to restoring capitalist rule. In the pages of his Paris-based newspaper, Constitutional Democrat (Kadet) leader Pavel Miliukov counseled his fellow reactionaries to accept the call, “Down with the Bolsheviks! Long live the Soviets!” As this would likely mean only a temporary passing of power to “the moderate Socialists,” argued the shrewd bourgeois Miliukov, “not only the Monarchists but other candidates for power living abroad have no rhyme or reason for being in a hurry” (Poslednie Novosti, 11 March 1921; quoted in Wright, “The Truth About Kronstadt”).

What could the demand for “free soviets” mean in the context of Soviet Russia in 1921? Many of the most advanced workers had fought in the Red Army and perished or been drafted into important administrative posts. With the factories decimated and deprived of their best elements, the soviets atrophied. The regime of workers democracy was preserved by the layer of cadre in the Communist Party.

The revolutionary-minded elements of all the socialist and anarchist tendencies had gone over to the Bolsheviks, either individually or in regroupments. In 1917, the anarchists had briefly enjoyed some influence among the more volatile elements of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison because of their militant posture against the capitalist Provisional Government. After the October Revolution, the best of the anarcho-syndicalists, like Bill Shatov, a Russian American who had been a prominent Wobbly in the U.S., sided with the Bolsheviks in defense of the workers revolution. Those who didn’t turned to criminality and terror against the workers state, from staging armed robberies to bombing Moscow Communist Party headquarters in 1919. The “socialist” parties that had joined the Provisional Government, the Mensheviks and Right SRs, were by 1921 empty shells and lackeys of counterrevolution. The Left SRs, after briefly serving in the Soviet government, joined in 1918 in underground terror against the workers state. The Mensheviks’ posture of abiding by Soviet legality was dropped at every chance of a capitalist overthrow of the Soviet republic.

In Petrograd the remnants of the SRs, Mensheviks and various anarchists banded together in an “Assembly of Plenipotentiaries of the Factories and Shops of Petrograd.” This shadowy, unelected bloc collaborated with the newly formed monarchist Petrograd Combat Organization (PCO), as the PCO itself asserted (PCO Report to Helsinki Department of National Center, no earlier than 28 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy). The PCO even printed the Mensheviks’ leaflets! On March 14, the Assembly issued a leaflet in solidarity with Kronstadt that said not one word about socialism or soviets, but instead called for an uprising against “the bloody communist regime” in the name of “all power to the people” (“Appeal to All Citizens, Workers, Red Army Soldiers and Sailors,” 14 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy).

Despite lies spun by the press of the mutineers claiming mass uprisings in Petrograd and Moscow, even Menshevik leader Fyodor Dan admitted in a 1922 book that “There were no plenipotentiaries” and that “the Kronstadt mutiny was not supported by the Petersburg workers in any way” (quoted in “The Mensheviks in the Kronstadt Mutiny,” Krasnaia Letopis’, 1931, No. 2). “The workers immediately felt that the Kronstadt mutineers stood on the opposite side of the barricades—and they supported the Soviet power,” explained Trotsky (“Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt,” 15 January 1938). It is noteworthy that even the wing of the Communist Party that most zealously sought to champion the immediate economic interests of the workers, the semi-syndicalist Workers Opposition, participated in the crushing of the Kronstadt uprising.

But this selection doesn't provide any verifiable facts. It's largely just biased opinion and conjecture, using emotive language to reinforce the political agenda of whomever is writing it ("criminality and terror against the workers state"). The people whom are referenced are simply quoted as if their words were truth, rather that what they are: An opinion.

It's also disingenuous and devious in the way it employs non-sequitur logical fallacies. For example, the attempt at proving collaboration between supporters of the uprising and the whites (therefore trying to link the uprising with the whites), draws an unfounded link between the mutineers' supporters and the fact that the PCO published leaflets by those who supported the uprising, as well as openly supporting it in their own literature.

The only way for that link to be relevant to this discussion, and indeed proof that the mutineers' supporters were in collaboration with the whites, is if there is evidence that the mutineers' supporters had wanted the PCO to publish any articles in relation to the uprising or had asked for that to happen or were part of a decision making process. Where is the actual evidence that proves a link between the article's assertions? Where is the evidence that the mutineers or their supporters had anything to do with what the PCO chose to do? The fact the PCO offered support is only proof that the PCO supported the uprising, which wouldn't be surprising considering their own reactionary, nefarious motives. It is not evidence of any thing else.


"The PCO even printed the Mensheviks’ leaflets! On March 14, the Assembly issued a leaflet in solidarity with Kronstadt that said not one word about socialism or soviets, but instead called for an uprising against “the bloody communist regime” in the name of “all power to the people” (“Appeal to All Citizens, Workers, Red Army Soldiers and Sailors,” 14 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy)."

So what? What has this got to do with the Kronstadt mutineers or their supporters?

The only reason this article would assert a fact and then draw a conclusion from it without actually providing evidence based on it premise would be to mendaciously try and link the Kronstadt mutineers with Monarchists, which begs the question: What are the motives? Why would this article do that? Could it be that the motives of the article are to discredit anarchists and present Lenin et al as being the saviours of the revolution? That certainly wouldn't be inconsistent with the actions of the Sparatcists or Trots more generally, and it certainly wouldn't be surprising if you consider the alternative: Being more sympathetic.

But I am happy to give the benefit of the doubt. It could be that the person who wrote the article was merely trying to put into words something that they believed is the truth and was lacking the necessary intellect to really interrogate the arguments they were trying to construct. Alternatively, (and more likely) the article was indeed written for duplicitous reasons and the attempt to employ such logical fallacies is simply evidence of the lack of integrity of this article and whomever wrote and endorses it.

Either way this article, or at least the selection provided, shouldn't be considered credible.

[Fred]

But this selection doesn't provide any verifiable facts. It's largely just biased opinion and conjecture, using emotive language to reinforce the political agenda of whomever is writing it ("criminality and terror against the workers state"). The people whom are referenced are simply quoted as if their words were truth, rather that what they are: An opinion.

It's also disingenuous and devious in the way it employs non-sequitur logical fallacies. For example, the attempt at proving collaboration between supporters of the uprising and the whites (therefore trying to link the uprising with the whites), draws an unfounded link between the mutineers' supporters and the fact that the PCO published leaflets by those who supported the uprising, as well as openly supporting it in their own literature.

The only way for that link to be relevant to this discussion, and indeed proof that the mutineers' supporters were in collaboration with the whites, is if there is evidence that the mutineers' supporters had wanted the PCO to publish any articles in relation to the uprising or had asked for that to happen or were part of a decision making process. Where is the actual evidence that proves a link between the article's assertions? Where is the evidence that the mutineers or their supporters had anything to do with what the PCO chose to do? The fact the PCO offered support is only proof that the PCO supported the uprising, which wouldn't be surprising considering their own reactionary, nefarious motives. It is not evidence of any thing else.



So what? What has this got to do with the Kronstadt mutineers or their supporters?

The only reason this article would assert a fact and then draw a conclusion from it without actually providing evidence based on it premise would be to mendaciously try and link the Kronstadt mutineers with Monarchists, which begs the question: What are the motives? Why would this article do that? Could it be that the motives of the article are to discredit anarchists and present Lenin et al as being the saviours of the revolution? That certainly wouldn't be inconsistent with the actions of the Sparatcists or Trots more generally, and it certainly wouldn't be surprising if you consider the alternative: Being more sympathetic.

But I am happy to give the benefit of the doubt. It could be that the person who wrote the article was merely trying to put into words something that they believed is the truth and was lacking the necessary intellect to really interrogate the arguments they were trying to construct. Alternatively, (and more likely) the article was indeed written for duplicitous reasons and the attempt to employ such logical fallacies is simply evidence of the lack of integrity of this article and whomever wrote and endorses it.

Either way this article, or at least the selection provided, shouldn't be considered credible.

A comrade provided a link to the entire article earlier in this thread. You might try reading the whole thing - it won't satisfy you -- in part because you can't take in the historical sweep of what was going in at the time and because you have already made up your mind. But still, you might find it interesting. Again the idea that this uprising would lead anywhere but imperialist invasion and/or restoration of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy is mind boggling.

It was the leadership of the uprising that was most suspect, with regard to connections to the whites. The fact that the Paris papers knew about the uprising before it happened along with some other details in the article do implicate the Kronstadt leadership. The fact that they fled to refuge in Mannerheim's Finland is also a pretty unsavory detail. The fact that the military leaders were always questionable in their support to the revolution is another issue.

In the end, this uprising, which certainly used some legitimate complaints of the sailors, was a mutiny -- against the proletarian dictatorship. It had no support outside of Krondstadt and Paris/London. It had to be stopped.

[The Feral Underclass]

Again the idea that this uprising would lead anywhere but imperialist invasion and/or restoration of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy is mind boggling.

Based upon what is this claim made?


It was the leadership of the uprising that was most suspect, with regard to connections to the whites. The fact that the Paris papers knew about the uprising before it happened along with some other details in the article do implicate the Kronstadt leadership.

What is the actual substantive accusation that is being made here? Other than your circumstantial posits, what are you actually accusing them of doing?


The fact that they fled to refuge in Mannerheim's Finland is also a pretty unsavory detail.

And this is proof of what, exactly?


The fact that the military leaders were always questionable in their support to the revolution is another issue.

What does "questionable in their support to the revolution" actually mean? You could call any one who disagreed with the nature of the Bolshevik state "questionable." It's easy for a state to set the standards of questionableness, since they have a monopoly on power.


In the end, this uprising, which certainly used some legitimate complaints of the sailors, was a mutiny -- against the proletarian dictatorship.

But herein lies the actual issue. The political agenda of the Bolshevik leadership was to defend their political power, legitimised as "proletarian" power through a self-defining political agenda and ideological justifications.

Any actions by them taken against challenges to their power was therefore always going to be legitimised based upon their political agenda and ideological justifications. The Bolsheviks pre-define the interests of the proletariat, win the political agenda, position themselves as the defenders of those pre-defined interests and therefore the defenders of the proletariat, ergo any attack on the Bolsheviks is then qualified as an attack on the proletariat...That's how ideological hegemony works and in this instance it's based on some pretty shaky logic.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Based upon what is this claim made?

Oh, I don't know, the entire history of the revolution up to that point, particularly the uprisings organised by the League of Salvation, the KomUch, and similar groups?


And this is proof of what, exactly?

Obviously, the White regime in Finland - that was engaged in a large-scale massacre of socialists at the time - did not consider these alleged ultra-revolutionaries to be much of a threat, and indeed these alleged ultra-revolutionaries accommodated themselves to the Finnish state just fine.


What does "questionable in their support to the revolution" actually mean?

In this case, it means a marked tendency to go over to the Whites and the peasant bandits.


You could call any one who disagreed with the nature of the Bolshevik state "questionable." It's easy for a state to set the standards of questionableness, since they have a monopoly on power.

But herein lies the actual issue. The political agenda of the Bolshevik leadership was to defend their political power, legitimised as "proletarian" power through a self-defining political agenda and ideological justifications.

Any actions by them taken against challenges to their power was therefore always going to be legitimised based upon their political agenda and ideological justifications. The Bolsheviks pre-defines the interests of the proletariat, wins the political agenda, positions themselves as the defenders of those pre-defined interests and therefore the defenders of the proletariat, ergo any attack on the Bolsheviks is then qualified as an attack on the proletariat...That's how ideological hegemony works and in this instance it's based on some pretty shaky logic.

Bollocks. The RKP(b) was not some sort of ideological monolith, and it contained elements that disagreed with the course taken by Lenin and the Bolshevik majority - the Left Communists, the Decists, the Workers' Opposition and so on. Of course, none of these elements tried to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship through military syndicalism, so the modern anarchists have not posthumously baptised them as anarchists, as they did with the Kronstadt mutineers and the Left S-Rs.

[Fred]

Based upon what is this claim made?



What is the actual substantive accusation that is being made here? Other than your circumstantial posits, what are you actually accusing them of doing?



And this is proof of what, exactly?



What does "questionable in their support to the revolution" actually mean? You could call any one who disagreed with the nature of the Bolshevik state "questionable." It's easy for a state to set the standards of questionableness, since they have a monopoly on power.



But herein lies the actual issue. The political agenda of the Bolshevik leadership was to defend their political power, legitimised as "proletarian" power through a self-defining political agenda and ideological justifications.

Any actions by them taken against challenges to their power was therefore always going to be legitimised based upon their political agenda and ideological justifications. The Bolsheviks pre-define the interests of the proletariat, win the political agenda, position themselves as the defenders of those pre-defined interests and therefore the defenders of the proletariat, ergo any attack on the Bolsheviks is then qualified as an attack on the proletariat...That's how ideological hegemony works and in this instance it's based on some pretty shaky logic.

In discussing history it helps if you understand what was going on at the time -- you clearly do not. Tell me what the prospects were for the Kronstadters had they been able to hold out? Any discussion of this is necessarily speculative, because this is not what happened. The Bolsheviks were a proletarian party -- this is well documented. As the actual proletariat in the Soviet Union was literally being decimated after the Revolution, it created very trying circumstances indeed. Your solution ends up with counterrevolutionary defeat at the hands of the Whites/Imperialists. Unless one can formulate any reasonable route to another destination -- why contest this? Magically, the Kronstadt Commune would find adherents and create a new and better Soviet Union? How? With what human material? The Peasantry might have supported something like this -- but where does that lead? Same place, counterrevolution. It was a mutiny headed for only bad outcomes. What actually happened probably approximates the least bad for the workers and peasants of the USSR.

[The Feral Underclass]

In discussing history it helps if you understand what was going on at the time -- you clearly do not.

I'm afraid this is just not a satisfactory response to my questions. Responding to my questions by telling me I don't understand history is useful in what sense? If it's the case that I don't understand, you would have no problem informing me of the answers to my questions.


Tell me what the prospects were for the Kronstadters had they been able to hold out?

None whatsoever.


The Bolsheviks were a proletarian party

That was certainly their claim.


As the actual proletariat in the Soviet Union was literally being decimated after the Revolution, it created very trying circumstances indeed. Your solution ends up with counterrevolutionary defeat at the hands of the Whites/Imperialists. Unless one can formulate any reasonable route to another destination -- why contest this? Magically, the Kronstadt Commune would find adherents and create a new and better Soviet Union? How? With what human material? The Peasantry might have supported something like this -- but where does that lead? Same place, counterrevolution. It was a mutiny headed for only bad outcomes. What actually happened probably approximates the least bad for the workers and peasants of the USSR.

It is interesting that you are evading substantiating your initial claims by simply repeating yourself, only this time you're employing a different tactic: Bringing into question the likelihood of success.

Well that's fair enough, but no one, certainly not I, have made the claim that the Kronstadt mutineers posed any real chance of succeeding. But that's neither here nor there, is it? It's not evidence for their collaboration with the whites, it's not evidence that their demands would have led to counter-revolution. It's simply recognising the hegemony of the Bolsheviks.

So far the only reasoning I can see is that the Kronstadt demands would have challenged the Bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks were the proletariat, therefore the demands challenged the proletariat. Well, I'm sorry, but that's not a coherent argument.

[Captain Ahab]

I don't know, maybe a clue was the imprisonment of the 300 Bolsheviks on Kronstadt that did not go over to the insurgents. The leadership of the insurgency would have been more than happy to do that with the Bolsheviks on the mainland, no doubt.
Yes it is generally a good idea when revolting against a government to ignore supporters of said government and let them carry on their activities. Perhaps you should read the FAQ's section that covers the trot myth that the sailors demanded Soviets without Bolsheviks before you continue sputtering nonsense.

[Fred]

Yes it is generally a good idea when revolting against a government to ignore supporters of said government and let them carry on their activities. Perhaps you should read the FAQ's section that covers the trot myth that the sailors demanded Soviets without Bolsheviks before you continue sputtering nonsense.

Comrade, the sailors did not demand Soviets without Bolsheviks -- I erred when I said something to that effect. That being said, they were arresting Bolsheviks and threatening them with execution. Why would they have taken a kinder and gentler approach in Petrograd, had they been given the opportunity? They were all for rehabilitating parties that had been involved in counterrevolutionary activities - who, like the Mensheviks when in power, did arrest the Bolsheviks in July. So I don't think they made this demand. I have no clue how you might think in practice it would have worked any other way. The Bolsheviks who remained Bolsheviks would not have been in the Soviets because the would have been in prison or killed.

[The Feral Underclass]

The Bolsheviks who remained Bolsheviks would not have been in the Soviets because the would have been in prison or killed.

Perhaps. But as it stands this was actually the fate of the anarchists at the hands of the Bolsheviks. That, of course, you have no problem with.

[Fred]

I'm afraid this is just not a satisfactory response to my questions. Responding to my questions by telling me I don't understand history is useful in what sense? If it's the case that I don't understand, you would have no problem informing me of the answers to my questions.



None whatsoever.



That was certainly their claim.



It is interesting that you are evading substantiating your initial claims by simply repeating yourself, only this time you're employing a different tactic: Bringing into question the likelihood of success.

Well that's fair enough, but no one, certainly not I, have made the claim that the Kronstadt mutineers posed any real chance of succeeding. But that's neither here nor there, is it? It's not evidence for their collaboration with the whites, it's not evidence that their demands would have led to counter-revolution. It's simply recognising the hegemony of the Bolsheviks.

So far the only reasoning I can see is that the Kronstadt demands would have challenged the Bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks were the proletariat, therefore the demands challenged the proletariat. Well, I'm sorry, but that's not a coherent argument.
It is not a trivial point. What would have happened if they had managed to repel the Red Army (and the delegates from the Party Congress that was in session)? Of course, if you believe the Bolsheviks were just capitalists in a slightly unusual form, then I guess it wouldn't matter if the Whites and imperialists came back -- Big whoop. But if you defend the gains of the October Revolution that existed and recognized the enormous possibilities (especially recognizing the Bolsheviks commitment to fostering international revolution) then you would recognize the disaster a victory by the mutineers would have been.

The Bolshevik Party in 1921 was the only force in the USSR that could move forward a communist program. The peasantry has no inherent use for socialism -- it is very satisfied by obtaining the land. It has to be won over to the superiority of collective farming. The proletariat had been devastated by years of war and the near collapse of industry. So the Bolsheviks had a hard choice -- carry on, even using nominally undemocratic methods, to spread the revolution to the west -- or give the fuck up and allow counterrevolution. These were not desired, or even decent conditions -- it is what they faced. And the material pressures were too much -- they allowed for the Stalinist Thermidor that fully held sway by mid 1924.

[Captain Ahab]

Comrade, the sailors did not demand Soviets without Bolsheviks -- I erred when I said something to that effect. That being said, they were arresting Bolsheviks and threatening them with execution.
Citation? Your Spart propaganda article ,if it is to be "trusted", at best only points to one lone individual desiring to execute the Bolshevik prisoners. He himself only being in a position to take out 23. The only other claim to back this up is the totally trustworthy claims of a fleet commissar that took part in repressing the revolt for the Bolshevik government.

Why would they have taken a kinder and gentler approach in Petrograd, had they been given the opportunity?
A kinder and gentler approach would have arisen had the Bolshevik government decided not to be fiercely opposed to the cause of the sailors and adamant in its desire to crush the uprising by force. If that were the case then the sailors would have seen no need to imprison supporters of the Bolshevik government and would have left them unmolested.

They were all for rehabilitating parties that had been involved in counterrevolutionary activities - who, like the Mensheviks when in power, did arrest the Bolsheviks in July. So I don't think they made this demand. I have no clue how you might think in practice it would have worked any other way. The Bolsheviks who remained Bolsheviks would not have been in the Soviets because the would have been in prison or killed.
Before I can further reply to your apologetics I must first need you to specify the parties engaged in "counter-revolutionary" activity. I don't like to shoot blind here.
I must also know if you would still consider someone a bolshevik even if they leave the party.

[SonofRage]

The Bolshevik Party in 1921 was the only force in the USSR that could move forward a communist program.

I have a hard time accepting these sort of claims when they so clearly didn't. Saying this without backing it up with anything comes off as religious.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[Remus Bleys]

Kronstadt is seen as demanding too much, as being counterrevolutionary.
Isn't that what Lenin did? Demand more from the provisional government and shut them down, progressing ever further?

[Fred]

Citation? Your Spart propaganda article ,if it is to be "trusted", at best only points to one lone individual desiring to execute the Bolshevik prisoners. He himself only being in a position to take out 23. The only other claim to back this up is the totally trustworthy claims of a fleet commissar that took part in repressing the revolt for the Bolshevik government.

A kinder and gentler approach would have arisen had the Bolshevik government decided not to be fiercely opposed to the cause of the sailors and adamant in its desire to crush the uprising by force. If that were the case then the sailors would have seen no need to imprison supporters of the Bolshevik government and would have left them unmolested.

Before I can further reply to your apologetics I must first need you to specify the parties engaged in "counter-revolutionary" activity. I don't like to shoot blind here.
I must also know if you would still consider someone a bolshevik even if they leave the party.
Gee, I suppose that the fact that only 23 were in a cell outside of which a machine gun had been placed must have really warmed the hearts of the other 277 that were languishing in jail.

Well, the demands, as such called for reinstating all "left" socialist parties -- without specific parties being named. At the time, this would have, conventionally meant the Left SRs, and the Menshevik Internationalists. The Left SRs almost botched the Brest-Litovsk Treaty by carrying out terrorist attacks on German ministers in the USSR. They also carried out assasination attempts against leading Bolsheviks including Lenin. I don't know that the MIs even existed as a separate group inside the USSR of any size. I assure you that it would have been amazing how large these groups would suddenly have become as all SRs would have become Left SRs and all Mensheviks MIs.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The "official" Menshevik-Internationalist group, separate from the Menshevik Organising Committee, entered the Bolshevik party some time after the Mezhrayonka. The vague "left" of the Organising Committee, including Martov, first participated in the conferences that would form the White Movement and then, well, they pretty much did nothing. If they were not banned, it was probably more out of pity for their comically low number and lack of influence than out of respect for their revolutionary intentions. The Left Esers also split - actually, the majority of the party refused to support their Central Committee, and formed a number of split parties, most prominently the Popular Communists, most of which merged with the RKP(b).

And really, that is the problem with the phrase "left socialist" - there were very few groups in the Russian Republic, aside from the RKP(b), that were genuinely revolutionary. Right Mensheviks, Esers, even Popular Socialists, all of them could be called "left socialists", and indeed, it is difficult to believe that the Kronstadt mutineers meant anyone else.

[Brotto Rühle]

Before he went loopy, Ante Ciliga wrote on Kronstadt and the Bolsheviks. I'd urge everyone to read what he had to say.

[The Feral Underclass]

It is not a trivial point. What would have happened if they had managed to repel the Red Army (and the delegates from the Party Congress that was in session)? Of course, if you believe the Bolsheviks were just capitalists in a slightly unusual form, then I guess it wouldn't matter if the Whites and imperialists came back -- Big whoop. But if you defend the gains of the October Revolution that existed and recognized the enormous possibilities (especially recognizing the Bolsheviks commitment to fostering international revolution) then you would recognize the disaster a victory by the mutineers would have been.

You speak about the Bolsheviks as if they were the only people to share the view of international revolution or defended the gains of the October revolution...

This point you're making is only a significant one if you aim to construct a position that asserts the unfounded argument that a success in Kronstadt would have meant collapse of the revolution. Which seems ironic considering the outcome of the October revolution...

But what is that assertion actually based upon? Despite having asked several times I am yet to see a cogent argument. As far as I can tell, the only basis for making that argument would be that the Bolsheviks were the only thing keeping the revolution from failing.

You repeat this assessment here:


The Bolshevik Party in 1921 was the only force in the USSR that could move forward a communist program. The peasantry has no inherent use for socialism -- it is very satisfied by obtaining the land. It has to be won over to the superiority of collective farming. The proletariat had been devastated by years of war and the near collapse of industry. So the Bolsheviks had a hard choice -- carry on, even using nominally undemocratic methods, to spread the revolution to the west -- or give the fuck up and allow counterrevolution. These were not desired, or even decent conditions -- it is what they faced. And the material pressures were too much -- they allowed for the Stalinist Thermidor that fully held sway by mid 1924.

The only reason you can make the claim that the Bolshevik Party was the "only force in the USSR that could move forward a communist program" was because the Bolshevik party was the de facto political power, achieved by consolidating control over bourgeois state institutions and smashing its opposition. In other words, in the face of these material problems, it was the only force in the USSR that could move forward a communist program because it was the only force in the USSR. Let's avoid romanticising this.

How anarchist communists would have responded to these huge material problems in the USSR will never be known. The outcome of limiting the power of the Bolsheviks can never really be fully understood.

The anarchist communists tried to put their ideas into practice in the Ukraine and while succeeded in small parts compared to the USSR, they were never given the opportunity to spread their ideas, because they were violently put down and murdered by Trotsky.

The limiting of Bolshevik power was never able to be achieved either because these intentions were obfuscated by lies and ultimately those proponents suffered the same fate as the Ukrainian anarchists.

But let's also be clear here. The Bolsheviks, while being in your view the "only force", ultimately failed. It's all fine and well to speculate about the outcome of the Kronstadt mutineers and the anarchists being counter-revolution and the collapse of the revolution, but that is precisely what the result of Bolshevik hegemony actually was.

So perhaps the Kronstadt mutineers and anarchists et all had a point.

[Fred]

Yes, the Bolsheviks did ultimately fail. But it took over 70 years for the last gains to be erased. The legacy of the USSR in world events is very mixed. But certainly the very existence of the USSR allowed for the Chinese, Cuban, Korean, and Vietnamese revolutions. Not to mention the defeat of Germany in WWII. And yes, the bureaucracy often played a counterrevolutionary role, as in the Spanish Civil War. So it was a contradictory legacy. As you seem to live in a black and white world, I guess this makes little sense to you. The LO fought to keep revolutionary internationalism alive -- first within the party and then through forming a Fourth International. They remained intransigent in their defense of the gains of October, however.

And I would argue that vast majority of revolutionaries were in the Bolshevik Party by 1921. No one took a census on this, but lots of anarchists and other somewhat smaller groups fused with the Bolsheviks or joined individually during 1917 and after. It's all moralism with you, comrade. The big bad Bolsheviks took and then tried to hold power. They were looking far beyond the borders of the USSR (much less the Ukraine or Kronstadt).

[Leo]

At the time of writing, Serge was a member of the London Bureau, and that fact alone casts suspicion on his account - he had a massive axe to grind against Trotsky and indeed against all forms of revolutionary communism.

This is a slander. Serge was never a member of the London Bureau - the reason you are putting forward this slander is because Serge was, at one point, the Paris correspondent of the POUM in Spain, which was a member of the London Bureau and in Mexico, the London Bureau defended Serge against the Stalinist accusation that he was a fascist. Having relations with the London Bureau casts no suspicion on his account - whereas being an actual leading figure of the regime that supressed Kronstadt does cast suspicion on Trotsky's account. As for the charge that Serge had "a massive axe to grind against Trotsky and indeed against all forms of revolutionary communism", I will simply state that this is as ridiculous as calling Trotsky a fascist counter-revolutionary and Nazi collaborator. Serge considered himself a communist till the end of his days, and all he did to earn this particular slander from Trotskyists of several decades later like yourself was to disagree with the great Trotsky. How Trotskyism resembles Stalinism in declaring people to be counter-revolutionary anti-communists simply because they've dared to disagree and criticize the great leader is always fascinating.


Talk about going from bad to worse! If Serge was a suspicious character, Ciliga was a confirmed Menshevik sympathiser and Nazi.

Another outrageous slander! Do the history they teach you lads in Trot sects suck so bad? Ciliga, at the time he wrote the article in question, was not a Menshevik sympathiser - and calling someone a confirmed Menshevik sympathiser and Nazi reminds me so much of the Stalinist lines about the Right wing Trotskyite block collaborating with the Nazis. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound when you call someone a confirmed Menshevik sympathiser and a Nazi at the same time? The reason Trotskyists called Ciliga a Menshevik sympathiser is because Ciliga called, on principles, for awareness on and improvement of the conditions on all left-wing political prisoners in Russia, including the Mensheviks. Trotsky objected to that, because he had no objections to Mensheviks rotting in Stalin's gulags. Ciliga never became a Nazi - he did become a Croatian nationalist, but that happened much later in his life. His politics at the time were close to the Myasnikov group in Russia, initially starting his political journey at the ranks of the Russian left opposition. His book, the Russian Enigma, remains one of the best works written about political life in Russia after Lenin.


ONLY 300 Bolsheviks were jailed and threatened with execution? How high-minded and democratic. That was a taste of the "democracy" that would have been provided by the Kronstadters.

As opposed to detaining relatives of Kronstadt sailors who had nothing to do with the rebellion in Petrograd just to make them give in? As opposed to thousands of revolutionary sailors murdered without a trial at the hands of the Cheka? As opposed to the gulags and purges that were to follow the first gun fired on proletarians? I'll go ahead and say it tastes great - it ain't democracy, it's workers a revolt. As the Kronstadt Izvestia reported: "All the Kronstadt Communists are at liberty, and are unthreatened by any danger. Only those are restrained who tried to flee and were taken by the patrols. But even they are located in complete security, in a security which guarantees them against revenge by the populace for the "red terror." The Communists' families are inviolate, just as all citizens are inviolate."


The legacy of the USSR in world events is very mixed. But certainly the very existence of the USSR allowed for the Chinese, Cuban, Korean, and Vietnamese revolutions.

No, the very existance of the USSR allowed for its allied parties to take power in China, Korea and Vietnam and allowed nationalists who took power in Cuba to side with the USSR. Not the same thing.


Not to mention the defeat of Germany in WWII.

Yes, better not mention it indeed, given the fact that it was the same USSR that occupied Poland and Baltic countries with the same Germany.


And really, that is the problem with the phrase "left socialist" - there were very few groups in the Russian Republic, aside from the RKP(b), that were genuinely revolutionary. Right Mensheviks, Esers, even Popular Socialists, all of them could be called "left socialists",

Actually no. The term left socialist had a universal meaning - namely those to the left of the international social democratic movement, those against the war. In Russia it was mostly used to refer to the Left SRs but it can be argued that some other parties, such as for instance the Maximalists, anarchists groups as well as the Bolsheviks, Menshevik-Internationalists and the Interborough Organization, as well as later splits from the Bolsheviks like the Soviet Party could be argued to be included by this expression. The parties you cite, however, were and were known as right socialists and claiming that the Kronstadt rebels really meant right socialists when they said left socialists is, well, quite a stupid line of arguement.

Learn some fucking history, Trots.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

This is a slander. Serge was never a member of the London Bureau - the reason you are putting forward this slander is because Serge was, at one point, the Paris correspondent of the POUM in Spain, which was a member of the London Bureau and in Mexico, the London Bureau defended Serge against the Stalinist accusation that he was a fascist. Having relations with the London Bureau casts no suspicion on his account - whereas being an actual leading figure of the regime that supressed Kronstadt does cast suspicion on Trotsky's account.

Supporting the line of the London Bureau - you are strictly speaking right that he was never formally a member - does cast suspicion on his account. For someone so filled with righteous indignation at us Trotskyists for our "Stalinist methods", you forget that the London Bureau outright supported the regime in the Soviet Union until the fall of Bukharin and Yagoda.


As for the charge that Serge had "a massive axe to grind against Trotsky and indeed against all forms of revolutionary communism", I will simply state that this is as ridiculous as calling Trotsky a fascist counter-revolutionary and Nazi collaborator. Serge considered himself a communist till the end of his days, and all he did to earn this particular slander from Trotskyists of several decades later like yourself was to disagree with the great Trotsky. How Trotskyism resembles Stalinism in declaring people to be counter-revolutionary anti-communists simply because they've dared to disagree and criticize the great leader is always fascinating.

Nonsense. Quite a few people criticised "the great leader", and many of them turned out to be correct - concerning the Proletarian Military Policy, for example. But pray tell, what organisations did the "communist" Serge associate with? Only the London Bureau, as far as I can tell - and if that cesspit of centrism can be called a revolutionary communist organisation, why not the Labour and Socialist International? If Serge can be called a communist, why not Huysmans? Why not Kautsky?


Another outrageous slander! Do the history they teach you lads in Trot sects suck so bad? Ciliga, at the time he wrote the article in question, was not a Menshevik sympathiser - and calling someone a confirmed Menshevik sympathiser and Nazi reminds me so much of the Stalinist lines about the Right wing Trotskyite block collaborating with the Nazis. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound when you call someone a confirmed Menshevik sympathiser and a Nazi at the same time? The reason Trotskyists called Ciliga a Menshevik sympathiser is because Ciliga called, on principles, for awareness on and improvement of the conditions on all left-wing political prisoners in Russia, including the Mensheviks. Trotsky objected to that, because he had no objections to Mensheviks rotting in Stalin's gulags.

Quite correctly, if I might add, and you also forget that Ciliga was expelled from the Fourth International for contributing to Dan's paper in Paris.


Ciliga never became a Nazi - he did become a Croatian nationalist, but that happened much later in his life. His politics at the time were close to the Myasnikov group in Russia, initially starting his political journey at the ranks of the Russian left opposition. His book, the Russian Enigma, remains one of the best works written about political life in Russia after Lenin.

"Much later in his life"? Yes, in the forties, when he contributed to "Readiness" and "The Croat People", organs of the clero-Nazi regime in Croatia.


Actually no. The term left socialist had a universal meaning - namely those to the left of the international social democratic movement, those against the war. In Russia it was mostly used to refer to the Left SRs but it can be argued that some other parties, such as for instance the Maximalists, anarchists groups as well as the Bolsheviks, Menshevik-Internationalists and the Interborough Organization, as well as later splits from the Bolsheviks like the Soviet Party could be argued to be included by this expression. The parties you cite, however, were and were known as right socialists and claiming that the Kronstadt rebels really meant right socialists when they said left socialists is, well, quite a stupid line of arguement.

Learn some fucking history, Trots.

This is absolutely hilarious - the Mensheviks-Internationalists and the Mezhrayonka no longer existed at this point. The Maximalists had maybe a hundred members in Russia. The Left Esers split after the Central Committee tried to drag Russia back into the imperialist was by the liberal application of explosives. But you have never demonstrated that the term "left socialists" was only applied to these parties - in fact, you sort of gave yourself away with your own implied opposition to Mensheviks "rotting in Stalinist gulags" (that pogromists should rot! how tragic!).

[The Feral Underclass]

Yes, the Bolsheviks did ultimately fail. But it took over 70 years for the last gains to be erased. The legacy of the USSR in world events is very mixed. But certainly the very existence of the USSR allowed for the Chinese, Cuban, Korean, and Vietnamese revolutions. Not to mention the defeat of Germany in WWII. And yes, the bureaucracy often played a counterrevolutionary role, as in the Spanish Civil War. So it was a contradictory legacy. As you seem to live in a black and white world, I guess this makes little sense to you. The LO fought to keep revolutionary internationalism alive -- first within the party and then through forming a Fourth International. They remained intransigent in their defense of the gains of October, however.

And let's take a second and look at the Bolshevik legacy in China and Cuba and Korea and Vietnam.

But you're romanticising again. The fact there is a legacy isn't proof of anything. The Bolsheviks didn't invent legacies. It is quite conceivable that there would have been a legacy irrespective of the Bolsheviks.


And I would argue that vast majority of revolutionaries were in the Bolshevik Party by 1921. No one took a census on this, but lots of anarchists and other somewhat smaller groups fused with the Bolsheviks or joined individually during 1917 and after. It's all moralism with you, comrade. The big bad Bolsheviks took and then tried to hold power. They were looking far beyond the borders of the USSR (much less the Ukraine or Kronstadt).

:rolleyes:

This reductive argument that my criticisms are based on some kind of moralism comes from the same devious, disingenuous place that your Spartacist article comes from. It is merely an attempt at discrediting what I am saying. It is also a neat little evasion of the actual issue.

You have claimed that the Kronstadt revolution would have lead to counter-revolution and the victory of the whites, and therefore justified the violence. Yet you have failed to address that point with any kind of evidence, other than to assert that the Bolsheviks were the "only force in the USSR" capable of advancing a communist programme in the face of material conditions. Of course this conveniently ignores the fact that the Bolsheviks were the only force in the USSR capable of advancing anything, since they advanced their own hegemonic control at the expense of all other expressions of worker dissent.

How can you cogently argue that the material conditions could only be dealt with in this way because the Bolsheviks were the only force to deal with them, when that "force" made sure it was the only thing capable of dealing with them in the first place. Of course the Bolsheviks (and I mean anyone who sided with them) were the only people to try and resolve the material conditions facing Russia; they were the only people available to deal with them! Everyone else was in prison or dead.

That criticism isn't based on "morals", it is about recognising that the Bolsheviks, motivated by their own ideological interpretations of how to deal with current material conditions, wielded a party dictatorship and suppressed any attempts to challenge that hegemonic power -- challenges that were made for the very purpose of trying to prevent exactly what happened.

And all of that is in spite of the fact that just across the border Ukrainian anarchists seemed to be dealing with similar material conditions without institutionalising central political power, as were Spanish anarchists twenty five years later.

[Leo]

Supporting the line of the London Bureau - you are strictly speaking right that he was never formally a member - does cast suspicion on his account.

Yet Serge didn't support the line of the London Bureau because that organization was heterogeneous.


Nonsense. Quite a few people criticised "the great leader", and many of them turned out to be correct - concerning the Proletarian Military Policy, for example.

And a lot of other things, however most were purged from Trotskyist ranks - even ones like Alfred Rosmer.


But pray tell, what organisations did the "communist" Serge associate with? Only the London Bureau, as far as I can tell

Then you don't know much about Serge I'm afraid. Serge had always been a man in touch with many organizations: even when he was a Bolshevik, he was in touch with anarchist groups, when he was a member of the official Trotskyist opposition he was in touch with some of the dissident groups and when he was finally out of the Trotskyist opposition, he was in touch with virtually all the anti-Stalinist socialist groups he could be - including from the London Bureau to the Fourth International (yes, even after his split) and even the left communists. His positions after his split from Trotskyism weren't those of any of the said groups, but of his own - many of which I disagree with.


Quite correctly, if I might add, and you also forget that Ciliga was expelled from the Fourth International for contributing to Dan's paper in Paris.

So Stalinist terror was justified against everyone, except the Trotskyists? Just because someone hold Menshevik or SR or anarchist views, is it justifyable for communists to execute them? Is this what Trotskyism has come down to, justifying and defending the Stalinist purges?

Oh, and Ciliga left the Trotskyist movement when he was in political prison in Russia. I would be surprised if he ever was a member of the Fourth International given it was formed in 1938, when Ciliga was openly critical of Trotsky. Ciliga and Trotsky had a brief correspondence when he came out of Russia, but it soon turned out that his politics weren't in any close.


"Much later in his life"? Yes, in the forties, when he contributed to "Readiness" and "The Croat People", organs of the clero-Nazi regime in Croatia.

By the time Ciliga returned to Croatia in the 40ies, yes Ciliga became a Croatian nationalist, but given he'd been active within the opposition since mid 20ies, it was much later in his life.


This is absolutely hilarious - the Mensheviks-Internationalists and the Mezhrayonka no longer existed at this point.

The Mezhraiontsy obviously no longer existed, having joined the Bolshevik Party. The Menshevik-Internationalists were still there though. I've read your claim that the Menshevik-Internationalists joined the Interborough organization, and thus the Bolshevik Party but this isn't actually true. The Interborough organization had some ex-Mensheviks, yes, but most of its members were those in between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, like Trotsky and his followers, former Bolshevik Bogdanovites, Riazanovites and other independents.

The Menshevik-Internationalists were lead by some of the most famous leaders of the Mensheviks, like Martov, Axelrod and Martynov. They and their followers had opposed the war as a minority in the Menshevik Party, and after the October Revolution, they were critical of the Bolsheviks while supporting the Red Army against the Whites - they weren't officially banned until the ban on factions, by the way.


The Maximalists had maybe a hundred members in Russia.

So? The Interborough organization, for example, never had any more than a few hundred.


The Left Esers split after the Central Committee tried to drag Russia back into the imperialist was by the liberal application of explosives.

Again, so?


But you have never demonstrated that the term "left socialists" was only applied to these parties

Considering the fact that your arguement consists of claiming that the term "left socialist" applied to parties that were called right socialists, I think you should try to demonstrate some facts.


in fact, you sort of gave yourself away with your own implied opposition to Mensheviks "rotting in Stalinist gulags" (that pogromists should rot! how tragic!).

Mensheviks were pogromists now?

I don't defend the Mensheviks in any case. Even the Menshevik-Internationalists had too democratic-reformist, opportunist and stagist positions for me to sympathize with and the Right-Mensheviks had openly gone to the side of the bourgeoisie by supporting the war, and were now doing the bidding of imperialist powers.

I am, however, opposed to Stalinist bourgeois opression, gulags and executions. I consider Stalinist prisoners today to be as bourgeois as the Mensheviks and the Right-Wing SRs of the day - but I am opposed to bourgeois states imprisoning and murdering the them as I am opposed to the organized state terror of the bourgeoisie, be it Stalinist, fascist or democratic.

[Fred]

Who was "purged" from the Trotskyist ranks? Not Rosmer. And as for, Ciliga, I think contributing to an opponent's news paper ought to merit expulsion. Especially when the opponent is Dan.
In the US, oppositionists in the SWP were treated rather well. For example, when Shachtman and his followers abandoned defense of the USSR, they were not thrown out. In fact efforts were made to allow them to remain in the Party as long as they abided by the party majority. They decided to split with Trotsky and Cannon. Try reading "In Defense Of Marxism" for the details.

I am opposed to Stalinist repression and bourgeois repression, but:
1. These are not the same thing.
2. It depends on who is being repressed and why.

For example, when the Castro puts members of Omega 7 or other Gusano organizations in prison, I'm fine with that. When leftists critics of his regime are jailed, that's no good. But those that don't defend the gains of the Cuban revolution and who would open Cuba up to capitalist restoration (even more than the Castros have) I'm not so concerned about what happens to them. In the US, a very different stance is in order. If liberal critics of the US regime are jailed (a la Bradley Manning) that is to be fought against. Oh, I forgot, you don't think there was a revolution in Cuba. For you, there is nothing to defend. Castro=Bautista=Obama.

In any case, the Right SRs and the Kadets and the Mensheviks all would have flooded the "left socialist" parties at once had this been carried out. (Right SRs? Who is a Right SR here?:grin:) And the Left SRs had been up to some pretty dirty business prior to that time, in any case. The decrees of the Kronstadt leadership where carefully worded not to arouse suspicions of the sailors that they were a stalking horse for counterrevolution.

Without the existence of the USSR, the US probably would have used nukes in Korea and China.

[Fred]

And let's take a second and look at the Bolshevik legacy in China and Cuba and Korea and Vietnam.

But you're romanticising again. The fact there is a legacy isn't proof of anything. The Bolsheviks didn't invent legacies. It is quite conceivable that there would have been a legacy irrespective of the Bolsheviks.



:rolleyes:

This reductive argument that my criticisms are based on some kind of moralism comes from the same devious, disingenuous place that your Spartacist article comes from. It is merely an attempt at discrediting what I am saying. It is also a neat little evasion of the actual issue.

You have claimed that the Kronstadt revolution would have lead to counter-revolution and the victory of the whites, and therefore justified the violence. Yet you have failed to address that point with any kind of evidence, other than to assert that the Bolsheviks were the "only force in the USSR" capable of advancing a communist programme in the face of material conditions. Of course this conveniently ignores the fact that the Bolsheviks were the only force in the USSR capable of advancing anything, since they advanced their own hegemonic control at the expense of all other expressions of worker dissent.

How can you cogently argue that the material conditions could only be dealt with in this way because the Bolsheviks were the only force to deal with them, when that "force" made sure it was the only thing capable of dealing with them in the first place. Of course the Bolsheviks (and I mean anyone who sided with them) were the only people to try and resolve the material conditions facing Russia; they were the only people available to deal with them! Everyone else was in prison or dead.

That criticism isn't based on "morals", it is about recognising that the Bolsheviks, motivated by their own ideological interpretations of how to deal with current material conditions, wielded a party dictatorship and suppressed any attempts to challenge that hegemonic power -- challenges that were made for the very purpose of trying to prevent exactly what happened.

And all of that is in spite of the fact that just across the border Ukrainian anarchists seemed to be dealing with similar material conditions without institutionalising central political power, as were Spanish anarchists twenty five years later.
How did that work out in Spain and in the Ukraine, comrade?:rolleyes:

Kronstadt wasn't simply a polticial opposition, it was an armed insurrection (well, a mutiny, really). They weren't seeking some kind of settlement or discussion with the Bolsheviks, they were about removing them from power, jailing them, and possibly killing them. So yes, the Bolsheviks had little choice. Does the right of political freedom include the right of armed revolt? [Answer: only if you oppose the existing regime in the first place].

The leaders of the revolt had documented ties to the Whites. And because they would have become increasingly isolated, even if they had not been militarily vanquished, there would have been ever increasing pressure from the Kronstadters to accept "help" from the imperialists. And the leadership was all set for this. I would agree that the mass of sailors in Kronstadt had no sympathy for the Whites, they would have, however become the tools of the counterrevolution, willing or unwilling. How the fuck can I PROVE this. It is hypothetical.

[The Feral Underclass]

How did that work out in Spain and in the Ukraine, comrade?:rolleyes:

As a result of Bolshevik repression, it turned out badly.

Then again a workers' revolution wouldn't be a workers' revolution if it didn't have Bolsheviks fucking everything up.


Kronstadt wasn't simply a polticial opposition, it was an armed insurrection (well, a mutiny, really). They weren't seeking some kind of settlement or discussion with the Bolsheviks, they were about removing them from power, jailing them, and possibly killing them. So yes, the Bolsheviks had little choice.

And that opposition existed in an effort to prevent precisely what occurred.


Does the right of political freedom include the right of armed revolt? [Answer: only if you oppose the existing regime in the first place].

You're asking a communist revolutionary that question? But of course they opposed the existing regime in the first place, they knew what was going to happen!

And it's not a question of "rights", it's a question of defending revolutionary gains. Opposition to Bolshevik hegemony was a necessity, especially in light of what actually happened.


The leaders of the revolt had documented ties to the Whites.

So you keep saying, but you've so far provided no credible evidence to support this claim.


And because they would have become increasingly isolated, even if they had not been militarily vanquished, there would have been ever increasing pressure from the Kronstadters to accept "help" from the imperialists. And the leadership was all set for this.

Your speculation and conjecture is not relevant to this discussion. If you are going to make claims support them with evidence.


I would agree that the mass of sailors in Kronstadt had no sympathy for the Whites, they would have, however become the tools of the counterrevolution, willing or unwilling. How the fuck can I PROVE this. It is hypothetical.

Thank you.

Well, your hypothetical is irreverent. What is relevant here are the facts, and the facts are that the Kronstadt mutineers saw where Bolshevik hegemony was going, attempted to mount an opposition to it in order to protect workers' power and prevent the revolution from degenerating, which resulted in their brutal repression by a regime that ended up becoming precisely what the mutineers had tried to prevent in the first place.

[Geiseric]

Most of kronstadt DID NOT support the revolution until about 1918. There was a vanguard of sailors who were dead by the time of 1921, as were most of the revolutionaries who did October. Kronstadt itself didn't see any action through the civil war which is why politically unreliable people like Petrichenko, who supported makhnovchina, the SRs, and the finish government at different points, were sent there. The famous sailors mostly died in battle which is kind of why they're famous in the first place.

You people are saps, of course they would claim the Bolsheviks are evil. The white army as a whole called the Bolsheviks tyrants and power hungry the whole time, because they like kronstadt were supported by france and the entente.

[Leo]

Who was "purged" from the Trotskyist ranks? Not Rosmer.

He was for a while, when he opposed Trotsky's favorite faction in France. When the leader turned out to be something of a fraud, they restarted their friendship. You can check the last volume of the Deutscher biography if interested.


And as for, Ciliga, I think contributing to an opponent's news paper ought to merit expulsion. Especially when the opponent is Dan.

Again, Ciliga had split from Trotskyism when he was in prison in Russia.


For example, when the Castro puts members of Omega 7 or other Gusano organizations in prison, I'm fine with that. When leftists critics of his regime are jailed, that's no good. But those that don't defend the gains of the Cuban revolution and who would open Cuba up to capitalist restoration (even more than the Castros have) I'm not so concerned about what happens to them.

It is a matter of perspective. As I think that there are no gains of a revolution in Cuba since there never was a revolution but a bourgeois nationalist coup d'etat against a dictatorial government, and that Cuba never ceased to be a capitalist, I am concerned about the well-being of the victims of bourgeois state repression in Cuba as anywhere else. I don't really see Gusano organizations in Cuba being any different from any of the Stalinist organizations who are being targeted by the state in different Latin American countries or in fact the rest of the world.


In any case, the Right SRs and the Kadets and the Mensheviks all would have flooded the "left socialist" parties at once had this been carried out.

Instead, they flooded the Bolshevik Party, and the end result wasn't very favorable to the sincere communists in it.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yet Serge didn't support the line of the London Bureau because that organization was heterogeneous.

Surely, then, when the Bureau secretary F. Brockway openly supported the persecution of the Left Opposition, the "communist" Serge protested? No? When the Bureau considered fusing with the Right Opposition, did Serge object to association with an organisation that would include Lovestone, Brandler and so on? No, again?


And a lot of other things, however most were purged from Trotskyist ranks - even ones like Alfred Rosmer.

Alright? Perhaps the (temporary, as comrade Fred notes) expulsion of Rosmer was a mistake - I haven't read much about the case. Of course Trotsky was not somehow mystically incapable of making mistakes. But there was always debate in the Trotskyist movement - including on such matters as the class character of the Soviet bureaucracy etc., that are fairly central to Trotskyism. If Trotsky was as you insinuate, Shachtman would have been expelled for even thinking about bureaucratic collectivism - he wouldn't have to wait for Finland to split.


Then you don't know much about Serge I'm afraid. Serge had always been a man in touch with many organizations: even when he was a Bolshevik, he was in touch with anarchist groups, when he was a member of the official Trotskyist opposition he was in touch with some of the dissident groups and when he was finally out of the Trotskyist opposition, he was in touch with virtually all the anti-Stalinist socialist groups he could be - including from the London Bureau to the Fourth International (yes, even after his split) and even the left communists. His positions after his split from Trotskyism weren't those of any of the said groups, but of his own - many of which I disagree with.

Perhaps he tried to keep in contact with the Fourth International but, after the mid-thirties or so, the Fourth International didn't want anything to do with him. Trotsky even accused him of helping to expel Trotskyists from parties associated with the London Bureau.


So Stalinist terror was justified against everyone, except the Trotskyists?

Obviously Trotskyists have defended other parties, for example POUM, part of the London Bureau. But a criminal does not become innocent if they are locked up by Stalinists.


Oh, and Ciliga left the Trotskyist movement when he was in political prison in Russia. I would be surprised if he ever was a member of the Fourth International given it was formed in 1938, when Ciliga was openly critical of Trotsky. Ciliga and Trotsky had a brief correspondence when he came out of Russia, but it soon turned out that his politics weren't in any close.

Ciliga wrote articles for the "Bulletin of the Opposition" - I don't know if he was ever a formal member, but the Fourth International was a very loose organisation in that period. But after Trotsky discovered that Ciliga had written articles for Dan's rag, Trotskyists refused all further collaboration.


By the time Ciliga returned to Croatia in the 40ies, yes Ciliga became a Croatian nationalist, but given he'd been active within the opposition since mid 20ies, it was much later in his life.

Not merely a "Croatian nationalist", a Nazi. I have no idea why you insist otherwise - both of the publications he wrote for were Nazi publications, and after the war, he was active in Croat-Nazi organisations, including one set up by the former Croat fuehrer.


The Mezhraiontsy obviously no longer existed, having joined the Bolshevik Party. The Menshevik-Internationalists were still there though. I've read your claim that the Menshevik-Internationalists joined the Interborough organization, and thus the Bolshevik Party but this isn't actually true. The Interborough organization had some ex-Mensheviks, yes, but most of its members were those in between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, like Trotsky and his followers, former Bolshevik Bogdanovites, Riazanovites and other independents.

The Menshevik-Internationalists were lead by some of the most famous leaders of the Mensheviks, like Martov, Axelrod and Martynov. They and their followers had opposed the war as a minority in the Menshevik Party, and after the October Revolution, they were critical of the Bolsheviks while supporting the Red Army against the Whites - they weren't officially banned until the ban on factions, by the way.

First of all, I never claimed that the Mensheviks-Internationalists entered the Mezhrayonka, and then the RKP(b) - I wrote that they had entered the RKP(b) after the Mezhrayonka had. And second, we seem to be thinking of two different groups. I was talking about the RSDRP (Internationalist), led by Larin, a group most people referred to as Mensheviks-Internationalists. That group entered the RKP(b), and Larin ended up in the VeSeNKha, if I'm not mistaken.

Martov and Axelrod (I'm not sure about Martynov) were part of the RSDRP (Organising Committee), the main Menshevik organisation. Sure, they were on the left of that organisation, but they never broke with the chauvinists. They were sometimes called "Menshevik internationalists", but they weren't part of the same group as Larin.


So? The Interborough organization, for example, never had any more than a few hundred.

Well, yes. And therefore, the Mezhrayonka could never be prominent as an independent organisation - its importance lies in its role in bringing Trotsky and left Mensheviks like Uritsky close to the Bolsheviks.


Again, so?

So that raises the question of why these Left-Eser terrorists should have been released. Was there an excess of buildings, that needed to be dynamited?


Considering the fact that your arguement consists of claiming that the term "left socialist" applied to parties that were called right socialists, I think you should try to demonstrate some facts.

Actually, you haven't demonstrated that they were called "right-socialist". As you should know, everyone tried to pass off as more left than they were in those days - hence the absorption of the Progressists and the Nationalists into the Kadets. Hence the "revolutionary defencism" of Dan and Chernov. The only parties willing to openly announce their rightism were Plekhanov's microscopic "Yedinstvo" and the Populist Socialists.


Mensheviks were pogromists now?

Well, yes. The Organising Committee and the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries, in addition to the Kadets and the Populist Socialists, were the main political motivators of the White Movement. White directorates and governments were filled with Mensheviks.


I don't defend the Mensheviks in any case. Even the Menshevik-Internationalists had too democratic-reformist, opportunist and stagist positions for me to sympathize with and the Right-Mensheviks had openly gone to the side of the bourgeoisie by supporting the war, and were now doing the bidding of imperialist powers.

I am, however, opposed to Stalinist bourgeois opression, gulags and executions. I consider Stalinist prisoners today to be as bourgeois as the Mensheviks and the Right-Wing SRs of the day - but I am opposed to bourgeois states imprisoning and murdering the them as I am opposed to the organized state terror of the bourgeoisie, be it Stalinist, fascist or democratic.

And there is the crux of the issue - you consider the Soviet Union to have been bourgeois, probably well before "Stalin", we consider it a workers' state. So obviously our approach will differ.

As for "gulags and executions", I will simply echo comrade Fred's point - there is quite a difference between the Cuban regime imprisoning Posadas and imprisoning or shooting Posadas Carriles.

[Fred]

He was for a while, when he opposed Trotsky's favorite faction in France. When the leader turned out to be something of a fraud, they restarted their friendship. You can check the last volume of the Deutscher biography if interested.



Again, Ciliga had split from Trotskyism when he was in prison in Russia.



It is a matter of perspective. As I think that there are no gains of a revolution in Cuba since there never was a revolution but a bourgeois nationalist coup d'etat against a dictatorial government, and that Cuba never ceased to be a capitalist, I am concerned about the well-being of the victims of bourgeois state repression in Cuba as anywhere else. I don't really see Gusano organizations in Cuba being any different from any of the Stalinist organizations who are being targeted by the state in different Latin American countries or in fact the rest of the world.



Instead, they flooded the Bolshevik Party, and the end result wasn't very favorable to the sincere communists in it.
Right-O. And that's why Left Communism as a political tendency barely exists. You can't defend palpable gains such as the Cuban Revolution -- you equate it with other bonapartist regimes. Yet the imperialists know the difference. Look at the way the US treats Cuba versus Nicaragua, Brazil, or Bolivia. Their analysis is far more clear-headed than yours. It's a black-and-white world with (a few) good guys, and many bad guys.

And btw -- why should anyone trust Serge's writings 20 some years after the fact? Why didn't he come out with this stuff at the time?

[Fred]

As a result of Bolshevik repression, it turned out badly.

Then again a workers' revolution wouldn't be a workers' revolution if it didn't have Bolsheviks fucking everything up.



And that opposition existed in an effort to prevent precisely what occurred.



You're asking a communist revolutionary that question? But of course they opposed the existing regime in the first place, they knew what was going to happen!

And it's not a question of "rights", it's a question of defending revolutionary gains. Opposition to Bolshevik hegemony was a necessity, especially in light of what actually happened.



So you keep saying, but you've so far provided no credible evidence to support this claim.



Your speculation and conjecture is not relevant to this discussion. If you are going to make claims support them with evidence.



Thank you.

Well, your hypothetical is irreverent. What is relevant here are the facts, and the facts are that the Kronstadt mutineers saw where Bolshevik hegemony was going, attempted to mount an opposition to it in order to protect workers' power and prevent the revolution from degenerating, which resulted in their brutal repression by a regime that ended up becoming precisely what the mutineers had tried to prevent in the first place.

Since you seem to need to have misread the Spartacist's article on Kronstadt, I will give a selection that proves the PRCs connection to the Whites.


The Anarchist School of Falsification

As we have noted, current anarchist apologists for Kronstadt make much of the work of Israeli academic Israel Getzler. The Infoshop Web site, for example, features an exhaustively anti-Leninist 100-plus-page tract on Kronstadt that claims, “Anarchist accounts have been validated by later research while Trotskyist assertions have been exploded time and time again” (“What Was the Kronstadt Rebellion?”, www.infoshop.org, undated). Let us see. Getzler pompously declaims that “the question of the spontaneity of the revolt, which has bedevilled the historiography of the Kronstadt movement for six decades, [is] now settled—at least to my satisfaction” (“The Communist Leaders’ Role in the Kronstadt Tragedy of 1921 in the Light of Recently Published Archival Documents,” Revolutionary Russia, June 2002). All this because Cheka commissioner Agranov wrote, on the basis of the very limited evidence available in the days immediately after the mutiny, that “this investigation failed to show that the outbreak of the mutiny was preceded by the activity of any counterrevolutionary organization at work among the fortress’s command or that it was the work of [imperialist] Entente spies” (Agranov, Report to Cheka Presidium, 5 April 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy).

To read Getzler’s article, you would not know that Kronstadt Tragedy also includes a crucial White Guard report that did not even exist at the time of the initial Cheka investigation. In it, General G.E. Elvengren, Wrangel’s military representative in Finland, categorically asserts that there was an organized White operation at Kronstadt and explains why the mutiny was launched before the ice had melted:

“The key is that the Kronstadt sailors (the local organization connected with the broader organization), upon learning of the beginning of the movement in Petrograd and of its scale, took it for a general rising. Not wanting to passively remain on the sidelines, they decided, despite the agreed upon timetable, to go to Petrograd on the icebreaker Ermak, and take their place alongside those who had already come out. In Petrograd they immediately got oriented and saw that things were not as they expected. They had to quickly return to Kronstadt. The movement in Petrograd had died down, all was quiet, but they—the sailors—who were now compromised before the Commissars, knew that they would be repressed, and decided to take the next step and use the isolation of Kronstadt to announce their break from soviet power and to independently drive ahead their rising that they were thus compelled to begin.”
— Elvengren, Report to Russian Evacuation Committee in Poland, no later than 18 April 1921; reprinted in ibid.

While ignoring the Elvengren document, Getzler quotes a few isolated snippets on spontaneity from the testimony of participants. These are, to say the least, highly selective. Getzler cites Anatoly Lamanov, an editor of Izvestia of the PRC. Lamanov was an important front for the mutiny because he had been chairman of the 1917 Kronstadt Soviet and thus embodied the supposed continuity with Red Kronstadt. After his arrest, Lamanov told the Cheka: “The Kronstadt mutiny came as a surprise to me. I viewed the mutiny as a spontaneous movement” (Minutes of Cheka Interrogation of Anatoly Lamanov, 19 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy). This statement Getzler cites. What Getzler does not quote is Lamanov’s admission, a few sentences from the above, that after a March 11 delegated meeting in which Vilken participated:

“I changed my mind about the movement, and from that point no longer considered it to be spontaneous. Up until the seizure of Kronstadt by Soviet troops I thought the movement had been organized by the Left SRs. After I became convinced that the movement was not spontaneous, I no longer sympathized with it. I continued to take part in the Izvestia only because of my fears that the movement would lurch to the right....
“Now I am firmly convinced, that, without a doubt, White Guards, both Russian and foreign, took part in the movement. The escape to Finland convinced me of this. Now I consider my participation in this movement to have been an unforgivable, stupid mistake.”
— Minutes of Cheka Interrogation of Anatoly Lamanov, 19 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy
Quoted from Spring 2006
Russian Archives Refute Anarchist Lies, Again
Kronstadt 1921: Bolshevism vs. Counterrevolution

The article also clearly documents the BS assertion that the sailors in Kronstadt in 1921 were the same as the sailors in 1917 was a complete falsification based on a misuse of the data. I can copy and paste that in if you need to look at it again.

And for whatever it is worth, there were almost no Bolsheviks involved in the Spanish Revolution, that is a key reason it failed. The Stalinist and the Anarchist leadership (by and large) played despicable roles.

[The Feral Underclass]

In it, General G.E. Elvengren, Wrangel’s military representative in Finland, categorically asserts that there was an organized White operation at Kronstadt and explains why the mutiny was launched before the ice had melted:

“The key is that the Kronstadt sailors (the local organization connected with the broader organization), upon learning of the beginning of the movement in Petrograd and of its scale, took it for a general rising. Not wanting to passively remain on the sidelines, they decided, despite the agreed upon timetable, to go to Petrograd on the icebreaker Ermak, and take their place alongside those who had already come out. In Petrograd they immediately got oriented and saw that things were not as they expected. They had to quickly return to Kronstadt. The movement in Petrograd had died down, all was quiet, but they—the sailors—who were now compromised before the Commissars, knew that they would be repressed, and decided to take the next step and use the isolation of Kronstadt to announce their break from soviet power and to independently drive ahead their rising that they were thus compelled to begin.”
— Elvengren, Report to Russian Evacuation Committee in Poland, no later than 18 April 1921; reprinted in ibid.

Can you point to where in this quote it is categorically asserted that there was an organised white operation in Kronstadt? Once you have done that, could you further point out the evidence that links this White operation with the communist and anarchist mutineers.


The article also clearly documents the BS assertion that the sailors in Kronstadt in 1921 were the same as the sailors in 1917 was a complete falsification based on a misuse of the data. I can copy and paste that in if you need to look at it again.

If you were to look at this objectively, void of any bias, would you really claim that the transcripts from an interrogation by a secret police force could be a credible source of information?

[Fred]

Can you point to where in this quote it is categorically asserted that there was an organised white operation in Kronstadt? Once you have done that, could you further point out the evidence that links this White operation with the communist and anarchist mutineers.



If you were to look at this objectively, void of any bias, would you really claim that the transcripts from an interrogation by a secret police force could be a credible source of information?

I think you are getting confused, comrade -- the change in the composition of the garrison at Kronstadt is actually well documented -- that is not based on a quote -- it is based on the Agranov Report -- whose data have been grossly misused to "prove" the opposite.

I don't know under what conditions the interrogations where held. But the contents seem coherent, and bear no resemblance to the forced nonsensical confessions extracted by the GPU under Stalin. To what advantage to the prisoner would it be to suggest that the Whites might be involved at all? Wouldn't it have been safer simply to say that the participant had no knowledge of White involvement?

In the original report by Agronov on behalf of the Cheka, they denied there was White/Imperialist/Monarchist involvement. But more material surfaced later.

And the quote about the timing of the revolt (often cited by defenders of the mutiny as proof it was not premeditated) was about showing that the timing involved a change of plans based on the failed visit to Petrograd.

Everyone involved in discussing Kronstadt has an axe to grind.

[Bea Arthur]

I think you are getting confused, comrade -- the change in the composition of the garrison at Kronstadt is actually well documented -- that is not based on a quote -- it is based on the Agranov Report -- whose data have been grossly misused to "prove" the opposite.

I don't know under what conditions the interrogations where held. But the contents seem coherent, and bear no resemblance to the forced nonsensical confessions extracted by the GPU under Stalin. To what advantage to the prisoner would it be to suggest that the Whites might be involved at all? Wouldn't it have been safer simply to say that the participant had no knowledge of White involvement?

In the original report by Agronov on behalf of the Cheka, they denied there was White/Imperialist/Monarchist involvement. But more material surfaced later.

And the quote about the timing of the revolt (often cited by defenders of the mutiny as proof it was not premeditated) was about showing that the timing involved a change of plans based on the failed visit to Petrograd.

Everyone involved in discussing Kronstadt has an axe to grind.

It's just a shame that you choose to grind your axe through the neck of a militant proletariat.

[Fred]

It's just a shame that you choose to grind your axe through the neck of a militant proletariat.

The garrison was not comprised mainly of proletarians -- the militant proletariat was in Petrograd, giving no support whatever to the rebellion.

Maybe Florida could make you a cup of tea or something to calm your jangled nerves? Or would that be Mrs. Naugatuck? Still think you have the best name ever.:)

[Fred]

Oh comrade Tension? Here's more from the article from Spartacist -- seems to, at the very least, conclusively link the Whites to the Kronstadt rebellion leadership. It also sheds light on what it meant for some of the reactionary high-ranking naval officers to be "freed" from oversight by Bolshevik Commisars.

I apologize to comrades for posting so much of this article, but it would seem that some of the anarchist comrades need to read it more than once to take it in.


Imperialists, Tsarist Officers and the PRC

If the Kronstadt mutiny was a “revolution,” it was a very strange one, indeed—supported by the imperialists, the Russian monarchists and capitalists and their Menshevik and SR lackeys! The revolt, observed Trotsky in a 23 March 1921 article, led to an immediate rise on the Paris and Brussels stock exchanges, particularly in Russian securities (“Kronstadt and the Stock Exchange,” Kronstadt by V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky). The defeated White émigré forces hurriedly patched together combat units. A former member of General Denikin’s entourage, N.N. Chebyshev, recalled in a 23 August 1924 article in the émigré press: “White officers roused themselves and started seeking ways to get to the fight in Kronstadt. Nobody was interested in who was there—SRs, Mensheviks or Bolsheviks who had become disenchanted with communism, but who still stood for the Soviets. The spark flew among the émigrés. Everybody’s spirit was lifted by it” (quoted in Shchetinov, Introduction to ibid.).

Émigré leaders, whose appeals to West European states had earlier fallen on deaf ears, were now embraced. While accepting that France might have given some aid, Avrich argued in Kronstadt 1921 that the Whites were basically spurned, checked by Western diplomatic obstacles. In fact, while France and Britain held back from open participation, they encouraged the small states bordering Russia to assist the mutiny. British foreign minister Lord Curzon wired his representative in Helsinki on March 11 stating: “His Majesty’s Government are not prepared themselves to intervene in any way to assist the revolutionaries. Very confidential: There is no reason, however, why you should advise the Finnish Government to take a similar course or to prevent any private societies or individuals from helping if they wish to do so” (Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939 [London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1961]). Suffice it to say that deliveries of food supplies to Kronstadt were allowed to proceed without serious interference, as was the concentration of White expeditionary forces in Finland.

In his 1921 Cheka report, Agranov documented the authoritative role played by General Kozlovsky and other bourgeois officers on the general staff. The anarchists have long argued that these officers simply functioned in an advisory capacity, and had been, in any case, appointed as military specialists by the Bolshevik government. Viewed by the mass of sailors with extreme suspicion, the officers certainly kept a low profile. But where they had earlier served under the strict supervision of Communist commissars, now the commissars were in jail, and the generals were on top. Kozlovsky sneered as he seized control from the commissar of the Kronstadt Fortress (V.P. Gromov) at a March 2 meeting, “Your time is past. Now I shall do what has to be done” (quoted in A.S. Pukhov, “Kronstadt Under the Power of the Enemies of the Revolution,” Krasnaia Letopis’, 1931, No. 1). A senior officer arrested in the wake of the mutiny further testified that in daily operational matters, “The Chairman of the PRC [Petrichenko] typically subordinated himself to the decision of the Chief of Defense [tsarist fort commander Solovianov] and did not raise objections to the latter’s operational activities” (Minutes of Cheka Interrogation of P.A. Zelenoi, 26 March 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy).

Officers like Kozlovsky provided an invaluable connection to the White émigré forces with whom they had served in the tsarist army. Among the latter was Baron P. V. Vilken, the former commander of the Sevastopol, who was tied to the London-based Naval Organization, a White Guard spy nest closely monitored by the Soviet Cheka Foreign Department. Russian intelligence services have now published the monitored Naval Organization correspondence and money transfers. The first of a series of telegrams described as “proposing necessary measures in support of the Kronstadt mutiny in Russia,” sent on 25 February 1921, instructed an agent to receive “400 Pounds Sterling and send it via two checks to Helsinki, which needs the money in the beginning of March” (Russkaia voennaia emigratsiia 20-x—40-x godov [The Russian Military Emigration 1920s-1940s], Volume One [Moscow: Geya, 1998]).

While “left” apologists for the mutiny have no choice but to acknowledge that the imperialists hailed the uprising, they claim that the mutineers themselves had nothing to do with the imperialists or the Whites. Anarchists love to cite the 6 March 1921 editorial in Izvestia of the PRC that struck a pose of vigilant opposition to the Whites: “Look sharp. Do not let wolves in sheep’s clothing approach the helmsman’s bridge” (quoted in Avrich, Kronstadt 1921). But we now know that two days after this editorial appeared, the PRC, behind the backs of the sailors, welcomed a whole pack of these wolves—including a courier from the SR Administrative Center; one Finnish Special Services agent; two representatives of the monarchist Petrograd Combat Organization; and four White Guard officers, including Vilken.

Vilken and another officer, General Yavit, were formally there as part of a three-man “Red Cross” delegation sent from Finland by National Center operative G.F. Tseidler. According to a detailed report by Tseidler to Russian Red Cross headquarters, a front for the Whites, the delegation was immediately invited to a joint session of the PRC and the general staff officers, where an agreement was reached for the provisioning of Kronstadt. When, Tseidler relates, one PRC member questioned “whether the PRC had the right to accept the proposed aid without first consulting the public that elected them,” as it could be seen as proof of “selling out to the bourgeoisie,” he was overruled with the line that “we cannot have continuous mass meetings” (Tseidler, Red Cross Activity in Organizing Provisions Aid to Kronstadt, 25 April 1921; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy).

Further evidence of right-wing machinations behind the backs of the sailors comes from a 1922 article in an émigré newspaper in Finland by disillusioned PRC member Alexander Kupolov. This article caused a furor in White Guard Finland; Kupolov subsequently returned to Soviet Russia, where he was arrested and then released after agreeing to work for the Cheka. Kupolov writes:

“The PRC, seeing that Kronstadt was filling up with agents of a monarchist organization, issued a declaration that it would not enter into negotiations with, nor accept any aid from, any non-socialist parties.
“But if the PRC issued this declaration, Petrichenko and the General Staff secretly worked in connection with the monarchists and prepared the ground for an overthrow of the committee....”
— Kupolov, “Kronstadt and the Russian Counterrevolutionaries in Finland: From the Notes of a Former Member of the PRC,” Put’, 4 January 1922; reprinted in Kronstadt Tragedy

According to Kupolov, Vilken also offered “an armed force of 800 men”—which the PRC, “taking into account the mood of the garrison, decided by a majority to decline.”

Another PRC member, an anarchist named Perepelkin, told his Cheka interrogator that he had been upset by Vilken’s prominence in the mutiny. According to Cheka Petrograd regional chairman N.P. Komarov, Perepelkin said:

“And here I saw the former commander of the Sevastopol, Baron Vilken, with whom I had earlier sailed. And it is he who is now acknowledged by the PRC to be the representative of the delegation that is offering us aid. I was outraged by this. I called together all the members of the PRC and said, so that’s the situation we’re in, that’s who we’re forced to talk to. Petrichenko and the others jumped on me, saying, ‘When we don’t have food or medicine—it’s all going to run out on March 21—are we really supposed to surrender to the conquerors? There was no other way out,’ they said. I stopped arguing and said I would accept the proposal. And on the second day we received 400 poods of food and cigarettes. Those who agreed to mutual friendship with the White Guard baron yesterday shouted that they were for Soviet power.”
— Komarov Report, Stenographic Report of Petrograd Soviet, 25 March 1921; reprinted in ibid.

Vilken urged the PRC to come out for the Constituent Assembly. Komarov reports asking Perepelkin: “And if on the day after, the baron had demanded of you not just the demand for a Constituent Assembly, but for a military dictatorship? Then how would you have dealt with the question?” Perepelkin replied, “I admit it, I can now frankly state that we would have adopted that as well—we had no other way out.” This was the “third revolution”!

Vilken was to remain at Kronstadt, essentially part of the operational leadership along with Petrichenko and the general staff, until the end. He was even invited to address a special crew meeting on his former command, the Sevastopol, on March 11. Tseidler himself (along with General Wrangel’s political representative in Finland, Professor Grimm) was mandated to represent Kronstadt as the government of the liberated territory of Russia. One of the first acts of the “Independent Republic of Kronstadt” was a radiogram, whose interception was reported into a March 9 session of the Bolshevik Tenth Party Congress then meeting in Moscow, congratulating Warren G. Harding upon his inauguration as U.S. president (cited in Shchetinov, Introduction to Kronstadt Tragedy)!

Writing in 1938, Trotsky stated: “The logic of the struggle would have given predominance in the fortress to the extremists, that is, to the most counterrevolutionary elements. The need for supplies would have made the fortress directly dependent upon the foreign bourgeoisie and their agents, the White émigrés. All the necessary preparations towards this end were already being made” (Trotsky, “Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt”). The archives completely vindicate Trotsky.
Quoted from
Spartacist English edition No. 59
Spring 2006
Russian Archives Refute Anarchist Lies, Again
Kronstadt 1921: Bolshevism vs. Counterrevolution

[Popular Front of Judea]

Hey mods could you please pin this and make it the defacto 'Kronstadt thread'? No point in starting one every 3 months or so is there? (Google 'site:revleft.com kronstadt') It's not like there is going to be any consensus any time soon.

[Geiseric]

Hey mods could you please pin this and make it the defacto 'Kronstadt thread'? No point in starting one every 3 months or so is there? (Google 'site:revleft.com kronstadt') It's not like there is going to be any consensus any time soon.

That might be structured better with a staged discussion of major points and the two sides Would answer without so much volume as this thread is like 5 pages.

[Brotto Rühle]

The garrison was not comprised mainly of proletarians -- the militant proletariat was in Petrograd, giving no support whatever to the rebellion.

Maybe Florida could make you a cup of tea or something to calm your jangled nerves? Or would that be Mrs. Naugatuck? Still think you have the best name ever.:)

"Trotsky's attempt to set the workers of Petrograd against those of Kronstadt in order to confirm the legend of the counter-revolutionary nature of the Kronstadt movement, comes back on Trotsky himself: in 1921, Trotsky pleaded the necessity under which Lenin was situated in justification of the suppression of democracy in the Soviets and in the party, and accused the masses inside and outside the party of sympathising with Kronstadt He admitted therefore that at that time the Petrograd workers and the opposition although they had not resisted by force of arms, none the less extended their sympathy to Kronstadt." - A. Ciliga

By opposition, he refers to internal Bolshevik opposition such as the likes of Kollantai, Miasnikov, etc.

[The Feral Underclass]

Oh comrade Tension?

Please don't call me comrade. I don't want to appear overly hostile, but I find it offensive that someone who is defending the murder of anarchists would speak to me in this way. If you really wish to show comradely behaviour I would appreciate it if you could stop referring to me as your comrade.


I apologize to comrades for posting so much of this article, but it would seem that some of the anarchist comrades need to read it more than once to take it in.

I haven't read the article. I am merely responding to the sections you are posting.

In this section for example, what is being talked about is largely circumstantial and yet more conjecture predicated on non-sequiter fallacies. This for example, at the very beginning:


If the Kronstadt mutiny was a “revolution,” it was a very strange one, indeed—supported by the imperialists, the Russian monarchists and capitalists and their Menshevik and SR lackeys!

It does not follow that because Whites supported the mutiny that it was counter-revolution. As of yet you have provided no evidence, and there is certainly no evidence in this article so far, that the the intentions and motives of mutineers was counter-revolution. Indeed, if one takes into consideration all of the demands and the public statements, you can see evidenced quite clearly that their motives was to safeguard the revolution from the Bolshevik leadership.

The fact that foreign capitalist governments lobbied for intervention; the fact that stock prices rose; the fact that White agents in Kronstadt received funds from White spy organisations (how this could be shocking at all is beyond me), and the fact that Cheka reports indicate the arrogance of White generals in Kronstadt, is proof only that the Whites were active in Kronstadt and were probably attempting to influence it...Nothing else.

The most compelling part of this particular section of the article is this:


"Anarchists love to cite the 6 March 1921 editorial in Izvestia of the PRC that struck a pose of vigilant opposition to the Whites: “Look sharp. Do not let wolves in sheep’s clothing approach the helmsman’s bridge” (quoted in Avrich, Kronstadt 1921). But we now know that two days after this editorial appeared, the PRC, behind the backs of the sailors, welcomed a whole pack of these wolves"

Let's put aside the fact that I'm not entirely sure how we "now know" this, since there is no reference or evidence provided to support this claim, what does thiss actually indicate? Firstly, it indicates, by the articles admission, that this was a deceptive act against the mutineers, and secondly it indicates that elements on the PRC should have been shot!

Neither of those things demonstrate anything else. If you want to argue, by the "evidence" in this article that Whites saw Kronstadt as an opportunity, that elements within the mutiny were sympathetic to the Whites and that the mutineers should have been more rigorous with their leadership, then I think that would be reasonable (although I would have to see more corroborating evidence that the piss poor examples in this article).

If, however, you want to try and spin the mutiny as a White rebellion, motivated and intended to usurp workers' power and bring back the Tzar or a bourgeois republic into power, then you are going to have to provide evidence to support that.

[bluemangroup]

Although it is clearly written from a Marxist-Leninist viewpoint, I would recommend this article on the Kasama Project's web site by Mike Ely entitled Kronstadt, The Maturation & Dispersal of a Revolutionary Core (can't post the link but it will come up when entered into Google).

IMHO the article lays out the historical conditions rather well at the time of the Kronstadt revolt, and is written from a pragmatic viewpoint.

I would strongly recommend one read it with an open mind, that and at least basic knowledge of the events described in the essay (the Russian Civil War, the White and Red movements, "Red Petrograd", etc.)

[Popular Front of Judea]

http://kasamaproject.org/history/2321-53kronstadt-the-maturation-dispersal-of-a-revolutionary-core


Although it is clearly written from a Marxist-Leninist viewpoint, I would recommend this article on the Kasama Project's web site by Mike Ely entitled Kronstadt, The Maturation & Dispersal of a Revolutionary Core (can't post the link but it will come up when entered into Google).

IMHO the article lays out the historical conditions rather well at the time of the Kronstadt revolt, and is written from a pragmatic viewpoint.

I would strongly recommend one read it with an open mind, that and at least basic knowledge of the events described in the essay (the Russian Civil War, the White and Red movements, "Red Petrograd", etc.)