The Kronstadt Demands...

[The Feral Underclass]

Leninists attempt to defend their vangaurd theory when questioned about the Kronstadt demands by claiming they were counter revolutionary, or that the demands went against the necessary direction of the revolution, and were unreasonable insofar as they were not accetpable to the working class as a whole. But if you actually look at the demands they were completely in line with the point of the revolution, and were applicable to the Kronstadt workers or were demands in greater democracy wihtin the working class organization.


THE PETROPAVLOVSK RESOLUTION (see article "Kronstadt 1921").

"Having heard the report of the representatives sent by the general meeting of ships' crews to Petrograd to investigate the situation there we resolve:

1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, with freedom to carry on agitation beforehand for all workers and peasants.

2. To give freedom of speech and press to workers and peasants, to anarchists and left socialist parties.

3. To secure freedom of assembly for trade unions and peasant organisations.

4. To call a non- Party conference of the workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and Petrograd province, no later than 10 March 1921.

5. To liberate all political prisoners of socialist parties, as well as workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with the labour and peasant movements.

6. To elect a commission to review the cases of those being held in prisons and concentration camps.

7. To abolish all political departments, since no party should be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive the financial support of the state for such purposes. Instead, cultural and educational commissions should be established, locally elected and financed by the State.

8. To remove all road block detachments immediately.

9. To equalise the rations of all working people, with the exception of those employed in trades detrimental to health.

10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches of the army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in factories and mills. Should such guard attachments be found necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks and in the factories and mills at the discretion of the workers.

11. To give peasants full freedom of action in regard to the land, and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the peasants manage with their own means, that is, without employing hired labour.

12. To request all branches of the army, as well as our comrades the military cadets, to endorse our resolution.

13. To demand that the press give all our resolutions wide publicity.

14. To appoint an itinerant bureau of control.

15. To permit free handicraft production by ones own labour."

Pertichenko, Chairman of the Squadron Meeting.

Perepelkin, Secretary.

None of the demands listed here are counter revolutionary or could be argued, go against the revolution or the will of the working class. in fact, all of them are inline with workers democracy and at worst, only demand more power from the state in the running of day to day affairs. How uncommunist of them?

[Morpheus]

Leninists are anti-proletarian.

[Kez]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 4 2004, 08:07 PM
Leninists attempt to defend their vangaurd theory when questioned about the Kronstadt demands by claiming they were counter revolutionary, or that the demands went against the necessary direction of the revolution, and were unreasonable insofar as they were not accetpable to the working class as a whole. But if you actually look at the demands they were completely in line with the point of the revolution, and were applicable to the Kronstadt workers or were demands in greater democracy wihtin the working class organization.


THE PETROPAVLOVSK RESOLUTION (see article "Kronstadt 1921").

"Having heard the report of the representatives sent by the general meeting of ships' crews to Petrograd to investigate the situation there we resolve:

1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, with freedom to carry on agitation beforehand for all workers and peasants.

2. To give freedom of speech and press to workers and peasants, to anarchists and left socialist parties.

3. To secure freedom of assembly for trade unions and peasant organisations.

4. To call a non- Party conference of the workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and Petrograd province, no later than 10 March 1921.

5. To liberate all political prisoners of socialist parties, as well as workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with the labour and peasant movements.

6. To elect a commission to review the cases of those being held in prisons and concentration camps.

7. To abolish all political departments, since no party should be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive the financial support of the state for such purposes. Instead, cultural and educational commissions should be established, locally elected and financed by the State.

8. To remove all road block detachments immediately.

9. To equalise the rations of all working people, with the exception of those employed in trades detrimental to health.

10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches of the army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in factories and mills. Should such guard attachments be found necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks and in the factories and mills at the discretion of the workers.

11. To give peasants full freedom of action in regard to the land, and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the peasants manage with their own means, that is, without employing hired labour.

12. To request all branches of the army, as well as our comrades the military cadets, to endorse our resolution.

13. To demand that the press give all our resolutions wide publicity.

14. To appoint an itinerant bureau of control.

15. To permit free handicraft production by ones own labour."

Pertichenko, Chairman of the Squadron Meeting.

Perepelkin, Secretary.

None of the demands listed here are counter revolutionary or could be argued, go against the revolution or the will of the working class. in fact, all of them are inline with workers democracy and at worst, only demand more power from the state in the running of day to day affairs. How uncommunist of them?
Aight, this should be a very good discussion TAT, nice one for bringing it up.

Looking at the demands, some are ok. However

look at number 10:
This would simply allow bourgeoise elements to gain control during the difficult years in the early USSR. Is it worth the risk? and for whose gain? Was trotsky not doing an excellent job fighting as a communist in the red army?

Look at number 11:
This cannot be allowed. This demand allows the rise of the petit bourgeoise, and would mean that a very important source of food which was vital for these difficult times would be in the hands of the petit bourgeoise, who would in future want more "freedom", i the freedom to exploit hired labour at a future point.

Look at 12:
Whats this about? why should the whole army take on these demands?

Look at 15:
Again this allows the rise for petit bourgeoise. The problem with the petit bourgeoise (under capitalist systems too) is that they simply demand more, and aspire to be capitalists. And who is blocking their way to be capitalists? the soviet system, it would be incorrect to allow such a force to come about. Only an idiot would allow this. Stalin did.

I think it is also important to see who these rebels backers were. I'll go into this later when i read a couple of documents, but just using a sketchy memory, their backers were the old bourgeoisie, and so in certain demands you can see how they have an alternative motive than those shown.

What you think?

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2004, 12:33 PM
look at number 10:
This would simply allow bourgeoise elements to gain control during the difficult years in the early USSR. Is it worth the risk? and for whose gain? Was trotsky not doing an excellent job fighting as a communist in the red army?
Part of the demand reads;


To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches of the army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in factories and mills.

No political entity has the right to have ideological militias under their direct control and integrated into an instituation like the army. Not even the bourgeoisie do this. The party, as the vangaurd and thus the state not only controls the army by their own mandate, they have ideological militias inside it whos loyalty is not to the army, or the workers, but to the party, the vangaurd and thus the state.

It continues...


Should such guard attachments be found necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks and in the factories and mills at the discretion of the workers.

The demand recognizes that it may be necessary, but seeks to allow the workers to appoint such a guard and be under their control, rather than the state having its own ideological militias guarding over them with guns.


Look at number 11:
This cannot be allowed. This demand allows the rise of the petit bourgeoise, and would mean that a very important source of food which was vital for these difficult times would be in the hands of the petit bourgeoise, who would in future want more "freedom", i the freedom to exploit hired labour at a future point.

How have you come to this conclusion? The demand simply asks that the peasnets be able to live for themselves, independently of the states authority.


Look at 12:
Whats this about? why should the whole army take on these demands?

Remember that these soldiers, workers and sailors had worked along side the bolsheviks in fighting the revolution and wanted their comrades to endorse them.


Look at 15:
Again this allows the rise for petit bourgeoise. The problem with the petit bourgeoise (under capitalist systems too) is that they simply demand more, and aspire to be capitalists. And who is blocking their way to be capitalists? the soviet system, it would be incorrect to allow such a force to come about. Only an idiot would allow this. Stalin did.

This demand does seem odd, but only in so far as the labour used to create such things could be put to better use. It would be a question of argument though, not force.


I think it is also important to see who these rebels backers were. I'll go into this later when i read a couple of documents, but just using a sketchy memory, their backers were the old bourgeoisie, and so in certain demands you can see how they have an alternative motive than those shown.

I just think its very convinient to state this. Like the idea that the jews were taking over germany was some fucked up justification for murdering millions of them, claiming that people are petite bourgeois was a good way for Lenin and Trotsky to kill people who questioned their authority.

[Morpheus]

look at number 10:
This would simply allow bourgeoise elements to gain control during the difficult years in the early USSR. Is it worth the risk?

They did anyway. Former Tsarist officers were made officers in the Red Army. At least with the Kronstdat's position the workers could vote them out.


Was trotsky not doing an excellent job fighting as a communist in the red army?

No, the only reason he won is because most of the population considered the Bolsheviks the lesser of two evils.


Look at number 11:
This cannot be allowed. This demand allows the rise of the petit bourgeoise, and would mean that a very important source of food which was vital for these difficult times would be in the hands of the petit bourgeoise, who would in future want more "freedom", i the freedom to exploit hired labour at a future point.

This demand was granted by Lenin, as part of the NEP.


Look at 12:
Whats this about? why should the whole army take on these demands?

They should be publicized so that people can know about their positions, not censored by the Bolsheviks.


Look at 15:
Again this allows the rise for petit bourgeoise. The problem with the petit bourgeoise (under capitalist systems too) is that they simply demand more, and aspire to be capitalists. And who is blocking their way to be capitalists? the soviet system, it would be incorrect to allow such a force to come about. Only an idiot would allow this.

This demand was also granted by Lenin as part of the NEP.


I think it is also important to see who these rebels backers were. I'll go into this later when i read a couple of documents, but just using a sketchy memory, their backers were the old bourgeoisie, and so in certain demands you can see how they have an alternative motive than those shown.

No, that is an old lie invented by Leninists to justify crushing the rebellion. See http://www.infoshop.org/faq/secH7.html#sech75

[kapitalistsvinya]

I think it is also important to see who these rebels backers were. I'll go into this later when i read a couple of documents, but just using a sketchy memory, their backers were the old bourgeoisie, and so in certain demands you can see how they have an alternative motive than those shown.


It was the Kronstadt ship Aurora that fired the "shot heard round the world" that started the Bolshevik revolution, and without them, I don't think the Bolshevik uprising would have succeeded.

The demands of the Kronstadt "rebels" were pretty much inline with the slogans that the Bolsheviks used to gain mass support prior October, such as "Peace, Land, and Bread". It was these types of promises that rallied the vast peasent majority of Russia to the bolshevik cause, but it wasn't long after the bolsheviks took power that the volost level soviets started coming into conflict with the local village communes, the Kronstadt rebellion was just another level of this unrest.