Krondstadt upsiring of July 18, 1917, commemorated

[freedum]

18 July, 2005. Local activists commemorate the Krondstadt uprising of July 18, 1917 by raising flags and tagging up on the half finished and virtually abandoned Krondstadt dam.

http://www.avtonom.org/news/0505.html

The locals are from the Peter Alekseev Resistance Movement of (if the Russian comes out here.... "Движения Сопротивления им. Петра Алексеева" ).

[i can't spell today!]

[freedum]

.................

[bunk]

I just bought an old book from freedom on the Kronstadt uprising. Cool!

[romanm]

They were a bunch of renegades in the service of imperialism. Had the bolsheviks not acted, the imperialists would have used it as a beachhead..

[JC1]

It was the only Armed Uprising of the Labour Aristocracy.

[Guest]

By dismissing Kronstadt rebellion, you're neglecting the General Strike that broke out in Petrograd ... that was the working class on strike in protest over the policies of War Communism.

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from the Weekly Worker, paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/225/buildfourth.html

"In March 1921 the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) split and fought to the death over the ice at Kronstadt. The programme of the minority was for rebuilding workers' democracy, elections to soviets, free speech, etc. The majority backed the Bolshevik government and its policy of war communism, which now came to mean war between communists. A majority of Kronstadt communists supported the uprising and many Red Army units either refused to fight or were reluctant to do so.

With these tragic events, the Russian revolution imploded."

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion

"Of the fifteen demands listed in the Kronstadt, only two were related to what Marxists term the "petty-bourgeoisie", the reasonably wealthy peasantry and artisans. These demanded "full freedom of action" for all peasants and artisans who did not hire labour. Like the Petrograd workers, the Kronstadt sailors demanded the equalisation of wages and the end of roadblock detachments which restricted both travel and the ability of workers to bring food into the city.

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http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSkronstadt.htm

"...The Kronstadt sailors were also active in the overthrow of Nicholas II in the February Revolution. A large number of the sailors were Bolsheviks and during the October Revolution they took control of the cruiser, Aurora, and sailed it up the River Neva and opened fire on the Winter Palace.

By 1921 the Kronstadt sailors had become disillusioned with the Bolshevik government. They were angry about the lack of democracy and the policy of War Communism. On 28th February, 1921, the crew of the battleship, Petropavlovsk, passed a resolution calling for a return of full political freedoms.

Lenin denounced the Kronstadt Uprising as a plot instigated by the White Army and their European supporters."

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Trotsky on Kronstadt: http://www.newyouth.com/archives/classics/...adt_trotsky.asp (http://www.newyouth.com/archives/classics/trotsky/hue_and_cry_kronstadt_trotsky.asp)

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Emma Goldman on Kronstadt:
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writin...ys/trotsky.html (http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Essays/trotsky.html)

"Leon Trotsky will have it that criticism of his part in the Kronstadt tragedy is only to aid and abet his mortal enemy, Stalin. It does not occur to him that one might detest the savage in the Kremlin and his cruel regime and yet not exonerate Leon Trotsky from the crime against the sailors of Kronstadt. ...

The process of alienating the Russian masses from the Revolution had begun almost immediately after Lenin and his party had ascended to power. Crass discrimination in rations and housing, suppression of every political right, continued persecution and arrests, early became the order of the day. True, the purges undertaken at that time did not include party members, although Communists also helped to fill the prisons and concentration camps. A case in point is the first Labour Opposition whose rank and file were quickly eliminated and their leaders, Shlapnikov sent to the Caucasus for "a rest," and Alexandra Kollontay placed under house arrest. But all the other political opponents, among them Mensheviki, Social Revolutionists, Anarchists, many of the Liberal intelligentsia and workers as well as peasants, were given short shrift in the cellars of the Cheka, or exiled to slow death in distant parts of Russia and Siberia. In other words, Stalin has not originated the theory or methods that have crushed the Russian Revolution and have forged new chains for the Russian people."

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Today's Anarhists on Kronstadt:
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/append42.html
search for "Kronstadt"
http://libcom.org/library/index.php?q=search
http://www.alasbarricadas.org/ateneo/modul...=Ap%E9ndice%20D (http://www.alasbarricadas.org/ateneo/modules/wikimod/index.php?page=Ap%E9ndice%20D)

http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001839.html
"Because of Kronstadt's leading role in the 1917 Revolutions Leninists have always insisted that the revolutionaries in Kronstadt in 1921 were not the same ones that had been there in 1917. The revolutionaries had been replaced at this stage with "Coarse peasants"."

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Alexander Berkman was there at the time. Here're his observations:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archi...t/berkkron.html (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/berkman/kronstadt/berkkron.html)

"The most revolutionary elements of Russia, the workers of Petrograd, were the first to speak out. They charged that, aside from other causes, Bolshevik centralisation, bureaucracy, and autocratic attitude toward the peasants and workers were directly responsible for much of the misery and suffering of the people. Many factories and mills of Petrograd had been closed, and the workers were literally starving. They called meetings to consider the situation. The meetings were suppressed by the Government. The Petrograd proletariat, who had borne the brunt of the revolutionary struggles and whose great sacrifices and heroism alone had saved the city from Yudenitch, resented the action of the Government. Feeling against the methods employed by the Bolsheviki continued to grow. More meetings were called, with the same result. The Communists would make no concessions to the proletariat, while at the same time they were offering to compromise with the capitalists of Europe and America. The workers were indignant-- they became aroused. To compel the Government to consider their demands, strikes were called in the Patronny munition works, the Trubotchny and Baltiyski mills, and in the Laferm factory. Instead of talking matters over with the dissatisfied workers, the "Workers' and Peasants' Government" created a war-time Komitet Oborony (Committee of Defense) with Zinoviev, the most hated man in Petrograd, as Chairman. The avowed purpose of that Committee was to suppress the strike movement."

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Ida Mett on Kronstadt:
http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net/history/...-uprising-5.htm (http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net/history/kronstadt-uprising-5.htm)

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Daniel Guerin on Kronstadt in Anarchism: From Theory To Practice:
http://www.zabalaza.net/texts/anarchism_guerin/russia.html

"The material conditions of urban workers had become intolerable through lack of foodstuffs, fuel, and transport, and any expression of discontent was being crushed by a more and more dictatorial and totalitarian regime. At the end of February strikes broke out in Petrograd, Moscow, and several other large industrial centers. The workers demanded bread and liberty; they marched from one factory to another, closing them down, attracting new contingents of workers into their demonstrations. The authorities replied with gunfire, and the Petrograd workers in turn by a protest meeting attended by 10,000 workers. Kronstadt was an island naval base forty-eight miles from Petrograd in the Gulf of Finland which was frozen during the winter. It was populated by sailors and several thousand workers employed in the naval arsenals. The Kronstadt sailors had been in the vanguard of the revolutionary events of 1905 and 1917. As Trotsky put it, they had been the "pride and glory of the Russian Revolution." The civilian inhabitants of Kronstadt had formed a free commune, relatively independent of the authorities. In the center of the fortress an enormous public square served as a popular forum holding as many as 30,000 persons.

....

The rebels did, however, intend to keep within the framework of the Revolution and undertook to watch over the achievements of the social revolution. They proclaimed that they had nothing in common with those who would have wished to "return to the knout of Czarism," and though they did not conceal their intention of depriving the "Communists" of power, this was not to be for the purpose of "returning the workers and peasants to slavery." Moreover, they did not cut off all possibility of cooperation with the regime, still hoping "to be able to find a common language." Finally, the freedom of expression they were demanding was not to be for just anybody, but only for sincere believers in the Revolution: anarchists and "left socialists" (a formula which would exclude social democrats or Mensheviks)."

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2005, 09:55 PM
Krondstadt uprising of July 18, 1917
Kronstadt was in 1921.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 27 2005, 11:11 PM
They were a bunch of renegades in the service of imperialism. Had the bolsheviks not acted, the imperialists would have used it as a beachhead..
There is no evidence to suggest that's true, only the opinions of Lenin and Trotsky. If you actually take the time to read the demands you can clearly see that their demands were inline with the revolution and in advancing real communism.

Also, members of the Communist Party joined the uprising.

[freedum]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 28 2005, 11:41 AM
Kronstadt was in 1921.

looks like theyr'e celebrating the 1917 events. haven't yet seen anything about the 1921 anti-Bolshevik uprising there but will look more.

from the Russian website Avtonom.org:

"88 years ago, 4 (18) July, 1917 (the old calendar system is behind by 2 weeks) 10 thousand sailors of Kronstadt (witnesses like Nikolai Sukhanov say 20,000) on 40 boats came to Petrograd to take part in a rebellion against the provisional government that wasn't fulfilling the social demands of the masses and to hand over power to the workers' Soviets.

First to attack was the 1st machine gun regiment where anarchist communists held strong positions of influence. They were supported by the workers of the Putilovsk factory where anarcho-syndicalist ideas about organizing production found a welcome home."

"88 лет назад, 4 (18) июля 1917 года (напомним, что старый стиль отстает от нынешнего на две недели), 10 тысяч матросов Кронштадта (очевидец событий Николай Суханов говорит о 20 тысячах) на 40 судах прибыли в Петроград, чтобы принять участие в восстании против Временного правительства, которое не выполняло социальные требования масс, и передать власть рабочим Советам.

Первым решил выступить 1-й пулеметный полк, где сильные позиции завоевали анархисты-коммунисты, его поддержали рабочие Путиловского завода, где находили отклик предложения анархо-синдикалистов по организации производства."