Kronstadt Rebellion

[Organic Revolution]

"March 7th is a harrowing date for the toilers of the so-called "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" who participated in one capacity or another in the events that occurred on that date in Kronstadt. The commemoration of that date is equally painful for the toilers of all countries, for it brings back the memory of what the free workers and sailors of Kronstadt demanded of their Red executioner, the "Russian Communist Party," and its tool, the "Soviet" government, busy doing the Russian revolution to death.

Kronstadt insisted of these statist hangmen that they hand back everything that belonged to the toilers of town and country, given that it was they who had carried out the revolution. The Kronstadters insisted upon the practical implementation of the foundations of the October revolution:

Freely elected soviets, freedom of speech and freedom of the press for workers and peasants, anarchists and Left Socialist Revolutionaries.

The Russian Communist Party saw this as an unconscionable challenge to its monopolist position in the country and, concealing its craven executioner's face behind the mask of revolutionary and workers' friend, pronounced the free sailors and workers of Kronstadt counter-revolutionaries and then sent against them tens of thousands of obedient cops and slaves: Chekists, Kursanty (Red Army officer cadets - note by Alexandre Skirda), Party members . . . in order to massacre these decent fighters and revolutionaries - the Kronstadters - who had nothing with which to reproach themselves before the revolutionary masses, their only offense having been to feel outrage at the lies and cowardice of the Russian Communist Party which was trampling upon the rights of the toilers and the revolution.

On March 7, 1921, at 6.45 p.m., a storm of artillery fire was unleashed against Kronstadt. As was only natural and inevitable, Kronstadt fought back. Fought back, not just on behalf of their demands, but also on behalf of the other toilers of the country who were struggling from their revolutionary rights, arbitrarily trampled underfoot by the Bolshevik authorities.

Their fight back echoed throughout an enslaved Russia which stood ready to back their just and heroic fight, but was unfortunately powerless to do so, because it had been disarmed, constantly exploited and kept in bondage by the repressive detachments from the Red Army and the Cheka, specially formed to break the free spirit and free will of the country.

It is hard to estimate the losses suffered by the Kronstadt defenders and of the blind mass of the Red Army, but we may rest assured that they numbered upwards of ten thousand dead. For the most part, they were workers and peasants, the very people whom the Party of Lies had used in order to seize power, by gulling them with promises of a better future. It had made use of them for years exclusively in pursuit of its own party interests, so as to spread and entrench its all powerful domination over the country's economic and political life.

Against the Bolshevik oligarchy, Kronstadt defended the very best of the workers' and peasants' struggle in the Russian revolution. For that very reason, the oligarchs exterminated the Kronstadters, some right after the military victory, the remainder in the dungeons and blockhouses inherited from the tsarist and bourgeois regime. Understood thus, the date of March 7th has to appear as a profoundly painful anniversary for the workers of all countries. So it is not just among Russian toilers only that the painful memory of the Kronstadt revolutionaries who perished in the fighting and the survivors who were left to rot in Bolshevik jails should be reawakened on that date. But this matter will not be resolved with moaning: aside from the commemoration of March 7th, the toilers of every land should organize rallies all over the place to protest against the outrages perpetrated in Kronstadt by the Russian Communist Party against revolutionary workers and sailors, and demand the release of the survivors languishing in Bolshevik prisons and interned in the concentration camps in Finland. "

The revolution was betrayed by the Bolshevik party, the will of the people in Kronstadt was crushed, and real revolution was negated. The call of "all power to the soviets, not the parties" will ring on forever.

The list of demands made by the Revolutionary Council in Kronstadt

1. Immediate new elections to the Soviets. The present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda.
2. Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties.
3. The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant organisations.
4. The organisation, at the latest on 10th March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District.
5. 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.
6. The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons and concentration camps.
7. 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 the place of the political sections various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State.
8. The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside.
9. The equalisation of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution.
13. We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution.
14. We demand the institution of mobile workers' control groups.
15. We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does not utilise wage labour.

[BOZG]

There's been numerous threads on it before.

[Organic Revolution]

What are your opinions of the Kronstadat Rebellion, and the following Bolshevik counter-revolution?

[Organic Revolution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 11:05 pm
There's been numerous threads on it before.
Well there are new members, with different ideas, so why not find out what they think?

[BOZG]

Just bring up the old thread then. There have been numerous posts on Leninist positions on Kronstadt already in the older threads.

[Organic Revolution]

The newest of the Kronstadat threads were book lists and flame wars, so i will open this back up.

[Vargha Poralli]

The newest of the Kronstadat threads were book lists and flame wars, so i will open this back up.

This will be too.


What are your opinions of the Kronstadat Rebellion, and the following Bolshevik counter-revolution?

Kronstadt is the counter revolution. Bolsheviks are right in breaking it.

[Organic Revolution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 11:54 pm



What are your opinions of the Kronstadat Rebellion, and the following Bolshevik counter-revolution?

Kronstadt is the counter revolution. Bolsheviks are right in breaking it.
How is it counter revolution?

[Severian]

Why start a new thread if you have nothing new to post?

Say, nothinng that wasn't previously stated in this thread. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=21264)

The article linked at the top of that thread (http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html) did have something new to say (new at the time.)

I think nobody on this board has previously linked this article on Kronstadt (http://marxists.org/history/etol/writers/wright/1938/02/kronstadt.htm)

[Okocim]

Crushing Kronstadt was entirely justified.

[Nusocialist]

The Kronstadt is an excellent example of what the Bolsheviks counter-revolutionary scum really are, never listen to them when they talk of allying together to bring about the social revolution, remember Krondstadt, remember the Makhnovists and remember what the Bolshevik tyrants did to them, what they did to the revolution.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Kronstadt was a petty bourgeois rebellion.

You see, by 1921 the recruitment into the sailors were from primarily peasant families.

They were going to have a different (petty bourgeois) concisenesses than the workers. and needed to be suppressed so they couldn't destroy the revolution.

Trotsky was right to crush them and im glad he and the Red army did. :D

[Coggeh]

Weren't the Kronstadt sailors the revolutionary vanguard for the party during the civil war ? how can you call them counter-revolutionary ?

They were the best example of a workers movement in the whole of the Soviet Union... Freedom is not just having the right to an education,decent home,proper healthcare its also he right to free speech and also freedom of association , both of which were crushed with an iron fist when were practised .

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

the 1917 sailors were different from the 1921 sailors. Different people, different class.

[Coggeh]

did you not read their points ? they include rights for workers aswell as peasants.Better than any bougeois authortarian that later become the norm in the house of soviets .

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by bloody_capitalist_sham+March 05, 2007 09:19 am--> (bloody_capitalist_sham @ March 05, 2007 09:19 am)Kronstadt was a petty bourgeois rebellion.

You see, by 1921 the recruitment into the sailors were from primarily peasant families.[/b]

If "the sailors were [recruited] primarily [from] peasant families", then surely the rebellion would have a distinct orientation towards the peasantry? And not the petty-bourgeois -- unless you're going to contend that the Russian peasantry was full of Managers, Professionals, etc., etc.

Of course, the rebellion did have a certain orientation towards the peasantry. Demand 11, for instance, was most definitely a demand which catered to the interests of the peasantry.

But that shouldn't distract from the fact that the majority of the demands raised were directly linked to the strike wave of 1921.

Whatever the background of the sailors was, they mostly wanted concessions that would benefit the working class. And that's why these demands were actually echoed by sections of the working class. Organisations like the Worker's Opposition and the Worker's Group, for example, did call for similar measures.

And, because of this, the sailors in Kronstadt shouldn't be viewed in a political vacuum. They were very much a product of the social situation in Russia at that time -- the social situation where the working class was battling to defend the gains made in 1917.

Kronstadt only receives more attention because of the blood spilled...


Originally posted by [email protected]
They were going to have a different (petty bourgeois) concisenesses than the workers.

Yes, the call for "Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties" has long been the battle cry of the petty-bourgeois.

:wacko:


bloody_capitalist_sham
Trotsky was right to crush them and im glad he and the Red army did. :D

Only in "Trotsky-land" will you see people take great delight in the type of actions that they will later condemn others for.

How do you feel about the crushing of Kronstadt? It was great!

How do you feel about the crushing of the Hungarian revolution? I hate those rotten Stalinist bastards...

I suppose, though, it must be nice to view things in such a simplistic light.

[Coggeh]

On the contray I'm a Trotskyist ,but i don't support the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion .Sounds a bit hypocritical tho , but i support most of Trotskys ideas and acts against Stalinism .

[Devrim]

From last time Kronstadt was discussed:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?act=ST&f=...st&p=1292181879 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=56867&hl=&view=findpost&p=1292181879)

I wrote this on another board last time the Kronstaft question came up. The arguments are basically the same:

The leftists’ theoretical gymnastics over the degeneration of the Russian revolution are really quite impressive. If they acknowledge that the Russian revolution was destroyed from within, it all comes down to when it actually decayed, and how to remove responsibility for this from their respective heroes. I can remember speaking to old Stalinists who thought that Khrushchev’s speech at the 20th congress was the greatest ever betrayal of the international working class. The SWP are a little more sophisticated, but not much. Instead of looking at what happened in the Russian revolution, and trying to draw a balance sheet of events they remain steadfast in their opinion that the 'great' Lenin could do no wrong, and therefore are forced into the rather untenable position of supporting the suppression of the working class at Kronstadt.

The easiest way to do this is by taking up the slanders made against the Kronstadt rebels by Lenin, and Trotsky at the time.

Originally posted by SWP member+--> (SWP member)
To understand what happened we have to look at the background of the sailors there. It 1917 it had been stronghold of the revolution, but by 1920 the compostion of the garison had greatly changed. Large numbers of the orginal garison had died in the civil war. By 1920 there was a much larger peasant component of the garison.[/b]



This belief is backed up by the assertions of Lenin, and the RCP(B) at the time, and has very little basis in reality. In fact it seems to fly in the face of all historical evidence:

Originally posted by Israel Getzler+ in Kronstadt, 1917-1921: The Fate of a Soviet Democracy--> (Israel Getzler @ in Kronstadt, 1917-1921: The Fate of a Soviet Democracy)
... that the politicized Red sailor still predominated at Kronstadt at the end of 1920 is borne out by the hard statistical data available regarding the crews of the two major battleships, the Petropavlosk and the Sevastopol, both reknowned since 1917 for their revolutionary zeal and Bolshevik allegiance. Of 2,028 sailors whose years of enlistment are known, no less than 1,904 or 93.9% were recruited into the navy before and during the 1917 revolution, the largest group, 1,195, having joined in the years 1914-16. Only 137 sailors or 6.8% were recruited in the years 1918-21, including three who were conscripted in 1921, and they were the only ones who had not been there during the 1917 revolution. As for the sailors of the Baltic Fleet in general (and that included the Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol), of those serving on 1 January 1921 at least 75.5% are likely to have been drafted from Great Russian areas (mainly central Russia and the Volga area), some 10% from the Ukraine and 9% from Finland, Latvia and Poland.[/b]



If we take this information as being representative of the Kronstadt rebels as a whole it would suggest that 59% of the sailors had been there since at least 1916 whilst 93.9% had been there at the time of the October revolution, hardly a great change in the composition of the garrison from when it was the ‘stronghold of the revolution’ in 1917.


Originally posted by SWP member

By 1920 there was a much larger peasant component of the garison.


I don't know if you realise it, Dom, but in a newly developing capital large numbers of the working class tend to come from peasant backgrounds Where else do you think that they come from? In Turkey today for example large proportions of the working class come from peasant backgrounds. The point is that they are proletarianised by their experience as workers.

As for your assertion that the Bolshevik party in Kronstadt contained more workers than the garrison in general, your support for it is plainly laughable.

Originally posted by SWP member

We can asume that the Bolshevik party had a higher content of workers than the garison as a whole.

Why? Please give a reason.

The Bolsheviks were a party that organised the working class. It believed the working class had to organise seperately than the peasantry so it follows that they had more support in the working class than the peasantry.



So, the 'Bolsheviks were a party that organised the working class' therefore they must have had a higher percentage of workers than the garrison as a whole'. However, according to information released by Sorine, Commissar for Petrograd, 5,000 sailors left the Party in January 1921 alone.


Originally posted by the Second Conference of Communist Sailors of the Baltic Fleet+ on 15th Feb 1921--> (the Second Conference of Communist Sailors of the Baltic Fleet @ on 15th Feb 1921)
Poubalt, having totally detached itself from the Party masses, has destroyed all local initiative. It has transformed all political work into paper work. This has had harmful repercussions on the organisation of the masses in the Fleet. Between June and November last year, 20 per cent of the (sailor Party members have left the Party. This can be explained by the wrong methods of the work of Poubalt.[/b]



Are we to assume then that all of these sailors were actually peasants, and that those who stayed were workers? Is it not slightly conceivable that some of those who left were workers disgusted with the way that the regime had taken to attacking the working class?

After all take a look at the situation in Petrograd at the time:

Ida Mett

The first strike broke out at the Troubotchny factory, on 23rd February 1921. On the 24th, the strikers organised a mass demonstration in the street. Zinovlev sent detachments of 'Koursanty' (student officers) against them. The strikers tried to contact the Finnish Barracks. Meanwhile, the strikes were spreading. The Baltisky factory stopped work. Then the Laferma factory and a number of others: the Skorokhod shoe factory, the Admiralteiski factory, the Bormann and Metalischeski plants, and finally, on 28th February, the great Putilov works itself.



Is it not possible that this could have led to the Bolshevik party in Kronstadt actually having a lower percentage of workers than the garrison as a whole? Neither of us have any figures to prove it either way, but the assertion that

Originally posted by SWP member

'Bolsheviks were a party that organised the working class' therefore they must have had a higher percentage of workers than the garrison as a whole.

is little more than idealist, subjectivist nonsense, and not worthy of a so-called Marxist.

Just to finish on the class nature of the rebels lets look at the class composition of the Provisional Revolutionary committee of the Kronstadt soviet:
* Petritchenko, chief quartermaster of the battleship 'Petropavlovsk',
* Yakovenko, liaison telephonist to the Kronstadt section,
* Ossossov, boiler man in the battleship 'Sebastopol',
* Arkhipov, chief engineer,
* Perepelkin, electrician in the battleship 'Sebastopol',
* Patrouchev, chief electrician in the 'Petropavlovsk',
* Koupolov, head male nurse,
* Verchinin, sailor in the 'Sebastopol',
* Toukin, worker in the 'Electrotechnical' factory,
* Romanenko, docks maintenance worker,
* Orechin, headmaster of the Third labour School,
* Valk, sawmill worker,
* Pavlov, worker in a marine mining shop,
* Boikev, head of the building section of the Kronstadt fortress,
* Kilgast, harbour pilot.

It seems like it was composed of workers, and sailors to me. Unlike the Bolshevik party Politburo at the time, which was composed of full members - Kamenev, Krestinsky, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky; candidate members - Bukharin, Zinovyev and Kalinin, only one of whom, Kalinin, had ever been a worker, and two of whom, Trotsky, and Zinovyev, actually came from rich peasant backgrounds.

Anyway enough of class composition, lets look at the programme of the Kronstadt rebels:

Originally posted by Kronstadt Izvestiia #1

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



Again it doesn't look that petty bourgeois to me. Admittedly points 11, and 15 do offer concessions to the poor peasantry, and can not be described in any way as Socialist measures. However, it does stress without using hired labor, and by personal labor. If we compare this to the NEP:

Originally posted by Wiki

promulgated by decree on March 21, 1921, "On the Replacement of Foodstuff and Natural Resource Assessment by a Natural Tax." In essence, the decree required the khulacks, middle-class farmers, to give the government a specified amount of any surplus agricultural, raw product, and fodder, and allowed them to keep the remaining surplus to use as capital or to trade for industrial goods. Further decrees refined the policy and expanded it to include some industries.


I find it hard to believe that anybody comparing the two programmes could see the Kronstadt one as the petty bourgeois one. Yes, it was brought in after the Kronstadt uprising, but was actually proposed by Trotsky one year earlier.

After the slanders have been refuted there remains the argument that:

Originally posted by SWP member

What would have happened if the revolt had not been crushed? The only viable alternative to the Bolsheviks power was the whites. They were not totally beated. On hearing news of the revolt they rised lots of money and prepared to land troups near by with the help of the French NAvy. Had the Bolsheviks waited for the ice to melf the Battleships would hve been able to sail up and attack Petrograd.



We seem to be forgetting here that the civil war was over. Lenin himself said at the time that

Originally posted by Lenin

This Kronstadt affair in itself is a very petty incident. It no more threatens to break up the Soviet state than the Irish disorders are threatening to break up the British Empire.

Was the threat of the Whites to be used eternally to discipline the working class?
When the Bolsheviks used force to settle an argument within the working class, they lined up on the side of the state, and capital against the workers, and thus ruined themselves as a party of the proletariat.

Originally posted by SWP member



How does a so-called proletarian movement justify using force against a proletarian movement?
I could turn that argument around to the Kronstadt rebellion. The Bolsheviks didn't fire the first shot.


I have never heard this one before. Trotsky declared on 6th March that :

[email protected]

'The Workers' and Peasants' Government has decided to reassert its authority without delay, both over Kronstadt and over the mutinous battleships, and to put them at the disposal of the Soviet Republic. I therefore order all those who have raised a hand against the Socialist Fatherland, immediately to lay down their weapons. Those who resist will be disarmed and put at the disposal of the Soviet Command. The arrested commissars and other representatives of the Government must be freed immediately. Only those who surrender unconditionally will be able to count on the clemency of the Soviet Republic. I am meanwhile giving orders that everything be prepared to smash the revolt and the rebels by force of arms. The responsibility for the disasters which will effect the civilian population must fall squarely on the heads of the White Guard insurgents.


and the first military action of the engagement was on the 8th March when a plane dropped a bomb on Kronstadt. All of this before the rebels had fired a shot.

SWP member

The Congress prescribes the rapid dispersal of all groups without exception which have formed themselves on one platform or another . . . failure to execute this decision of the Congress will lead to immediate and unconditional expulsion from the Party".


As the 'Red Army' was crushing the workers at Kronstadt the Party moved to crush any opposition within its own ranks.
Maisankov and other left communists, however, refused to support the suppression of the rebellion, and organised themselves as a faction within the Party which took part in worker's struggles.

Devrim Valerian

[Luís Henrique]

There is an interesting trend in the left to hold two mutually exclusive beliefs:

1. Soldiers are inherently reactionary and cannot be won to the revolution, since the military is a repressive institution;

2. Kronstadt sailors were the vanguard of the Russian revolution.

Luís Henrique

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

“The supposition that soldiers and sailors could venture upon an insurrection under an abstract political slogan of ‘free soviets’ is absurd in itself.... These people could have been moved to an insurrection only by profound economic needs and interests. These were the needs and interests of the fathers and brothers of these sailors and soldiers, that is, of peasants as traders in food products and raw materials. In other words the mutiny was the expression of the petty bourgeoisie’s reaction against the difficulties and privations imposed by the proletarian revolution.”

— Wright, “The Truth About Kronstadt”

[Vargha Poralli]

Even the government suppression of the rebellion of sailors at the Kronstadt garrison in 1921–which become the central article in the anarchist case against the Russian Revolution–can be defended. If the anarchist-influenced sailors had succeeded in their uprising against the government, the counterrevolutionary Whites would have had a breach that they would have exploited to roll back the revolution. And instead of having "Soviets without Bolsheviks," as the Kronstadt anarchists demanded, they’d get the elimination of the soviets, the return of pogroms, and a right-wing dictatorship. Even the main anarchist historian of the rebellion, Paul Avrich, wrote "the historian can sympathize with the rebels and still concede that the Bolsheviks were justified in subduing them."30 By Goldman and Berkman’s telling, this was the last straw for their support for the Russian government. They organized a group of anarchists, including Serge, to monitor events. Goldman and Berkman offered to lead an anarchist delegation to persuade the sailors to surrender, but the government never responded. Goldman and Berkman’s proposal "may have had some effect," because the Petrograd Soviet wired the sailors with a proposal that they meet with a delegation from the Soviet, including communists and non-party comrades. The sailors rejected this, proposing no more than 15 percent Communist Party members in any such delegation. Negotiations between the sides thus ended.

When the government suppressed the uprising, Goldman and Berkman issued a protest in the name of three anarcho-syndicalist groups, a protest that Serge refused to sign. Goldman accused him of cowardice and being in bed with the Bolsheviks, but as Serge’s testimony above shows, he had principled political reasons for his stand. Even though the Bolsheviks suppressed the uprising, they realized it signified the growing opposition of the peasantry, from which most of the Kronstadt sailors were drawn, to the forced requisition of grain under the extreme measures of "war communism." The government immediately began to implement the New Economic Policy, which reintroduced market relations. This had the effect of increasing the production of food and winning back some support from the peasants, but Goldman immediately denounced it as "a reversal of communism itself.

Source (http://www.isreview.org/issues/34/emmagoldman.shtml)

This is the problem of Anarchism. Most of them are really utopian idealists not analysing the situation and material conditions that made Lenin and Trotsky to take up such measures.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Coggy+March 05, 2007 11:26 am--> (Coggy @ March 05, 2007 11:26 am)On the contray I'm a Trotskyist ,but i don't support the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion .Sounds a bit hypocritical tho , but i support most of Trotskys ideas and acts against Stalinism .[/b]

I suppose it can be seen as "hypocritical". But that's only if our perception of what Trotskyism is, is based on what Trotskyism has become -- people living in a fantasy country called "Trotsky-land" where one Leon Trotsky has become a demi-god. Or, in other words, a doctrine.

If we view "Trotskyism" in its original historical context, however, it's not as hypocritical.

The original historical context is, of course, where "Trotskyism" represents a centre-right tendency in the Bolshevik Party led by one Leon Trotsky. A tendency which opposes both the rise of the "Stalinist bureaucracy" and the left factions inside and outside the Bolshevik Party.

And a tendency has more room for different views than a doctrine; making your views less hypocritical than you think.

Still though, been as most Trotskyists subscribe to the doctrine and not the tendency, including the majority of those in the CWI, you&#39;re something of a modern day anomaly. A nice anomaly, though. <_<


Originally posted by The Truth About Kronstadt by John G. Wright+--> (The Truth About Kronstadt by John G. Wright)The supposition that soldiers and sailors could venture upon an insurrection under an abstract political slogan of ‘free soviets’ is absurd in itself....[/b]

How on earth is the call to revitalise soviet democracy, which prospered for a short period of time, "abstract" and "absurd"?

The following is a transcript of a conversation between a barman and a customer that happened in Moscow on July 10th, 1920.

Barman: Greetings comrade, what can I get you today?
Customer: Sex on the beach, please.
Barman: That cocktails not even been invented yet you prat, can I get you something that would be historically accurate?
Customer: Alright, I&#39;ll have a White Russian then. Go easy on the Vodka though, gives me awful hangovers that.
Barman: [Mutters under his breath.] Fucking lightweight.
Customer: What did you say?
Barman: I said what do you think of this new State?
Customer: It&#39;s not too bad mate, don&#39;t think much of that Bukharin bloke though.
Barman: Yeah, he was in here the other night. Can&#39;t say I was too impressed.
[Barman serves the drink.]
Customer: You know though, if there was one thing I&#39;d like to see change, it&#39;s that I&#39;d like to see the soviets operate like they did in 1918. You know, when they were hotbeds for debate and all that.
Barman: That&#39;s an absurd thing to say. Indeed, I can&#39;t think of a more abstract thing to want. Complete nonsense.

Well, I suppose the historical evidence does back up Mr. Wright. Who would have thunk it&#33;


The Truth About Kronstadt by John G. [email protected]
These people could have been moved to an insurrection only by profound economic needs and interests.

So Mr. Wright doesn&#39;t think it&#39;s in the "economic interest" of the working class to fight for democratic control over the workplace? The fight for worker&#39;s democracy is not "profound" enough?


Lance Selfa
If the anarchist-influenced sailors had succeeded in their uprising against the government, the counterrevolutionary Whites would have had a breach that they would have exploited to roll back the revolution.

Even if we accept this premise, that a victorious rebellion would have led to a White Government, it still doesn&#39;t mean that what happened in Kronstadt was justified.

If, for example, the Bolshevik Government was what it claimed to be, then surely it could have implemented some of the sailors demands. Leading to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

But they didn&#39;t even consider this, did they? To the upper echelons of the Bolshevik Party, implementing even the demands with the greatest proletarian character was a big no, no.

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by Armchair
Still though, been as most Trotskyists subscribe to the doctrine and not the tendency, including the majority of those in the CWI, you&#39;re something of a modern day anomaly. A nice anomaly, though. dry.gif


While Marxists do not hero-worship individuals, Leon Trotsky nevertheless was the most courageous of revolutionaries: a revolutionary theoretician, a practitioner of revolution and to his death a defender of the socialist revolution. That’s why many of us today - and it will be the same for the new generation of Marxists - consider Leon Trotsky as a hero of the working class. We’re proud when our enemies denounce us as Trotskyists&#33;

G.Ram and BCS have both said it perfectly in this thread, well done guys.

[rebelworker]

Im currious if the flks who defend the crush in Kronstadt are actually reading the posts mabe by other folks.

In articualr the repetition of the old peasant makeup of the sailors lie.

When that is disproven, you folks put it away untill the next time it comes up, and move on to the whole, if the workers got there way the whites would have one the war line, which is an interesting thimg for a revolutionary to say.

How dose this relate to the general level of lying that Trotsky used to discredit his enemies? And how can you trust an argument based on repetative lying?

Just currious?

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Im currious if the flks who defend the crush in Kronstadt are actually reading the posts mabe by other folks.

In articualr the repetition of the old peasant makeup of the sailors lie.

When that is disproven, you folks put it away untill the next time it comes up, and move on to the whole, if the workers got there way the whites would have one the war line, which is an interesting thimg for a revolutionary to say.

How dose this relate to the general level of lying that Trotsky used to discredit his enemies? And how can you trust an argument based on repetative lying?

Just currious?

You need 1: a reality check

2: to research who the leaders of the Kronstadt rebellion were.

When the United States Invaded Iraq, it made demands that simply couldn&#39;t be met, or Iraq was unable to do, like give up its non-existent wmd&#39;s.

Now, imagine a country torn apart by civil war....forget all your utopian bullshit....and then there is a rebellion led by white leaders asking the impossible and are a very real threat to the revolution.

what&#39;s so hard to get?

What you should be wondering, its why the fuck anarchists supporting anti working class elements.

[Devrim]

You need 1: a reality check

2: to research who the leaders of the Kronstadt rebellion were.

Well, maybe I need a reality check (I am not actually too sure what that means), but I think that we stated here exactly who the leaders of the Kronstadt uprising were, and compared them to the Bolshevik leadership at the time.


Just to finish on the class nature of the rebels lets look at the class composition of the Provisional Revolutionary committee of the Kronstadt soviet:
* Petritchenko, chief quartermaster of the battleship &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Yakovenko, liaison telephonist to the Kronstadt section,
* Ossossov, boiler man in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Arkhipov, chief engineer,
* Perepelkin, electrician in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Patrouchev, chief electrician in the &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Koupolov, head male nurse,
* Verchinin, sailor in the &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Toukin, worker in the &#39;Electrotechnical&#39; factory,
* Romanenko, docks maintenance worker,
* Orechin, headmaster of the Third labour School,
* Valk, sawmill worker,
* Pavlov, worker in a marine mining shop,
* Boikev, head of the building section of the Kronstadt fortress,
* Kilgast, harbour pilot.

It seems like it was composed of workers, and sailors to me. Unlike the Bolshevik party Politburo at the time, which was composed of full members - Kamenev, Krestinsky, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky; candidate members - Bukharin, Zinovyev and Kalinin, only one of whom, Kalinin, had ever been a worker, and two of whom, Trotsky, and Zinovyev, actually came from rich peasant backgrounds.

[Coggeh]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 07:57 pm

Im currious if the flks who defend the crush in Kronstadt are actually reading the posts mabe by other folks.

In articualr the repetition of the old peasant makeup of the sailors lie.

When that is disproven, you folks put it away untill the next time it comes up, and move on to the whole, if the workers got there way the whites would have one the war line, which is an interesting thimg for a revolutionary to say.

How dose this relate to the general level of lying that Trotsky used to discredit his enemies? And how can you trust an argument based on repetative lying?

Just currious?

You need 1: a reality check

2: to research who the leaders of the Kronstadt rebellion were.

When the United States Invaded Iraq, it made demands that simply couldn&#39;t be met, or Iraq was unable to do, like give up its non-existent wmd&#39;s.

Now, imagine a country torn apart by civil war....forget all your utopian bullshit....and then there is a rebellion led by white leaders asking the impossible and are a very real threat to the revolution.

what&#39;s so hard to get?

What you should be wondering, its why the fuck anarchists supporting anti working class elements.
The kronstadt rebellion was fought because the peasant and an element of the working class saw that the soviet movement was fast becoming a party of elites and not of the working class. A threat to the revolution does not give you the right to persecute the very people your supposed to be representing .

How is fighting a party that is abusing their power as leaders anti-working class?

The fact that your linking the Kronstadt rebellion as petty bourgeois and counter revolutionary reminds me of Stalinist claims in Spain to damage the credibility of workers socialist/anarchist militias .

Why would the "whites" be asking for better rights for left-socialists and anarchists ? most of their claims are ones that would only better the working class . If the bolshevik regime was in the interest of workers they would have taking this into account.

[Organic Revolution]

Its interesting to see the communists advocating mass slaughter and counter revolution when its a &#39;petit-bourgeois&#39; uprising. Can you admit your leaders were wrong, and were murderers?

[Coggeh]

Its not all communists mate . Don&#39;t stereotype.

[Nusocialist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 09:19 am
Kronstadt was a petty bourgeois rebellion.

You see, by 1921 the recruitment into the sailors were from primarily peasant families.

They were going to have a different (petty bourgeois) concisenesses than the workers. and needed to be suppressed so they couldn&#39;t destroy the revolution.

Trotsky was right to crush them and im glad he and the Red army did. :D
The majority of Russians were from peasant families, and when the hell does peasant mean petty bourgeios? This is just vulgar Marxist thinking.
Except Marxist ideology what is the difference in status between down-troden peasants and the urban workers?

Look how far it got Trotsky,the Bolsheviks and the revolution, there was a Stalinist class dictatorship within ten years.

Honest to god, I&#39;m beginning to think anarcho-capitalists are better allies than Leninists, at the least the more intellectualy honest variety. At least they don&#39;t want to create a totalitarian dictatoryship.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 09:44 pm

You need 1: a reality check

2: to research who the leaders of the Kronstadt rebellion were.

Well, maybe I need a reality check (I am not actually too sure what that means), but I think that we stated here exactly who the leaders of the Kronstadt uprising were, and compared them to the Bolshevik leadership at the time.


Just to finish on the class nature of the rebels lets look at the class composition of the Provisional Revolutionary committee of the Kronstadt soviet:
* Petritchenko, chief quartermaster of the battleship &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Yakovenko, liaison telephonist to the Kronstadt section,
* Ossossov, boiler man in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Arkhipov, chief engineer,
* Perepelkin, electrician in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Patrouchev, chief electrician in the &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Koupolov, head male nurse,
* Verchinin, sailor in the &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Toukin, worker in the &#39;Electrotechnical&#39; factory,
* Romanenko, docks maintenance worker,
* Orechin, headmaster of the Third labour School,
* Valk, sawmill worker,
* Pavlov, worker in a marine mining shop,
* Boikev, head of the building section of the Kronstadt fortress,
* Kilgast, harbour pilot.

It seems like it was composed of workers, and sailors to me. Unlike the Bolshevik party Politburo at the time, which was composed of full members - Kamenev, Krestinsky, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky; candidate members - Bukharin, Zinovyev and Kalinin, only one of whom, Kalinin, had ever been a worker, and two of whom, Trotsky, and Zinovyev, actually came from rich peasant backgrounds.
ahhahaha that was the biggest ownage ever

[rouchambeau]

Why do we even argue this issue anymore? No one will ever change their mind, and nothing good will ever come of this debate.

Kronstadt is to radicals what abortion and the death penalty is to moderates; no one will ever change their mind or agree on anything.

[PRC-UTE]

LOL at above, maybe each side can start bringing out photoshopped images of dead from the Kronstadt battle, same way the anti-choice crowd do :lol:


I think a lot of interesting points have been made here, and I feel more confused about this issue than before.

it&#39;s kind of odd that one side makes the Kronstadt sailors into heroic martyrs, while glossing over the fact that they slaughtered 10000 red army soldiers.

it&#39;s also a bit over the top to believe that the majority of the servicemen in the mutiny were counter-revolutionaries, though it&#39;s certain that counter-revolutionary elements played a role. It seems pretty obvious that by making demands they were setting up the possibility of some form of resolution through reforms and negotiation.

if this has already been addressed than forgive me, but why is it the Bolshevik government&#39;s leadership didn&#39;t decide to negotiate?

[rebelworker]

Originally posted by PRC&#045;[email protected] 06, 2007 02:23 am

it&#39;s kind of odd that one side makes the Kronstadt sailors into heroic martyrs, while glossing over the fact that they slaughtered 10000 red army soldiers.

They fought back in self defence thats all.

You would have done the same thing in their place.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

You are all still siding with the counter revolutionary forces.


Typically the anarchists sided with fascists, capitalists, counter revolutionaries oh and a prince (lol, nice ;))

They do this, because they never get working class support, usually because the working class knows not to trust them.

You guys either don&#39;t support the 1917 oct revolution (which i suspect) or you support a petty bourgeois counter revolution.



ahhahaha that was the biggest ownage ever

Well they have certainly cherry picked their way through lol. leaving out all the whites and tzarist supporters.


The majority of Russians were from peasant families, and when the hell does peasant mean petty bourgeios? This is just vulgar Marxist thinking.
Except Marxist ideology what is the difference in status between down-troden peasants and the urban workers?

so you a so sectarian you actually admit to preferring cappies to "Leninist&#39;s" even though you admit you don&#39;t understand Marxist class definitions. im not surprised you&#39;re an anarchist :rolleyes:




Its interesting to see the communists advocating mass slaughter and counter revolution when its a &#39;petit-bourgeois&#39; uprising. Can you admit your leaders were wrong, and were murderers?

its interesting to see the liberals apologising for Tzar supporters and anti working class rebellions. Though not all that surprising considering your politics.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by PRC&#045;[email protected] 06, 2007 02:23 am
it&#39;s kind of odd that one side makes the Kronstadt sailors into heroic martyrs, while glossing over the fact that they slaughtered 10000 red army soldiers.

To be honest, I don&#39;t think anyone has really made the sailors out to be "heroic martyrs"; or, as Luís Henrique claimed earlier, "the vanguard of the Russian revolution". Rather, I think the general feeling is that the sailors were just a part of the wider struggle that was taking place in defence of the gains made in 1917.

And, as I said earlier, they just receive more attention because of the blood spilled.

And on that subject, it was really tactical mistakes by the Red Army leadership that led to 10,000 soldiers being slaughtered, as you put it. To try and attack the garrison in the manner that they did, was incredibly stupid.

Miles from the Communist League made a longer, more informative post on this before. I&#39;ll dig out the link and reply to some of the other points later on today.

[rebelworker]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 07:19 am

Typically the anarchists sided with fascists, capitalists, counter revolutionaries oh and a prince (lol, nice ;))

They do this, because they never get working class support, usually because the working class knows not to trust them.


Are you serrious???????

Ive had lots principled discussions with Leninist bofore, Hell I was in a trotskist probably for longer then youve known who he was, but its shit lke this that just kills any credibility you have. You can argue fact so you just resort to rediculous charicatures or name calling.

So where is the vast white conspiracy leading te Kronstad sailors (who wernt all peasants) and the Petrograd strikers (who werent all petty burgeoise facists)?

One white sypathiser in the barracks dose not equil a facist coup, hell Stalin was in the Bolshevik party dose this make all Bolsheviks paranoid backstabing maniacs?

[bcbm]

They do this, because they never get working class support, usually because the working class knows not to trust them.

Trusting any bunch of ideologically motivated ****s with an interest in being leaders has never worked out very well for the working class and thankfully they seem to be becoming more weary of the lot of you: anarchist, communist, leninist, whatever.

[Devrim]

Well they have certainly cherry picked their way through lol. leaving out all the whites and tzarist supporters.
It was what it said, a (complete) list of members of the Provisional Revolutionary committee of the Kronstadt soviet:

Just to finish on the class nature of the rebels lets look at the class composition of the Provisional Revolutionary committee of the Kronstadt soviet:
* Petritchenko, chief quartermaster of the battleship &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Yakovenko, liaison telephonist to the Kronstadt section,
* Ossossov, boiler man in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Arkhipov, chief engineer,
* Perepelkin, electrician in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Patrouchev, chief electrician in the &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Koupolov, head male nurse,
* Verchinin, sailor in the &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Toukin, worker in the &#39;Electrotechnical&#39; factory,
* Romanenko, docks maintenance worker,
* Orechin, headmaster of the Third labour School,
* Valk, sawmill worker,
* Pavlov, worker in a marine mining shop,
* Boikev, head of the building section of the Kronstadt fortress,
* Kilgast, harbour pilot.


Devrim

[The Feral Underclass]

Kronstadt Thread (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=49078&hl=kronstadt)

This thread is brilliant for refuting the Leninist attacks on Kronstadt. Pay particular attention to LSD&#39;s posts. Outstanding.

[Coggeh]

I hate when people make this an anarchist vs marxist topic .. its simply not &#33; im a trotskyist but i do have some support for the kronstadt rebellion. The kronstadt rebellion was unique it was not like the Tambov one where peasants/petty bourgeois and some anarchists were directly funded by whites. They call for better rights for both anarchists and socialists . They saw the Soviet movement soon becoming unjust and beurcratic. So they did what they saw needed to be and rebelled against the Soviet Union.

I support crushing counter-revolutions when their lead or have hard elements of bourgeois influence ,but the Kronstadt one simply didn&#39;t .

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

I hate when people make this an anarchist vs marxist topic .. its simply not &#33; im a trotskyist but i do have some support for the kronstadt rebellion. The kronstadt rebellion was unique it was not like the Tambov one where peasants/petty bourgeois and some anarchists were directly funded by whites. They call for better rights for both anarchists and socialists . They saw the Soviet movement soon becoming unjust and beurcratic. So they did what they saw needed to be and rebelled against the Soviet Union.

I support crushing counter-revolutions when their lead or have hard elements of bourgeois influence ,but the Kronstadt one simply didn&#39;t .

So the armed forces now are going to be the revolutionary element in society?

Listen, the only reason a liberal/anarchist brought Kronstadt up again is because it is one of the very few times in history anarchists have played a role.

Its why they harp on about Spain, which was just really a civil war, not a revolution. Their politics is based on using small events that involve a few anarchists and invariably lose the day and turn to reformism.

This ultimately isn&#39;t about demands or whether or not it was right to crush the rebellion, it is about the class nature of kronstadt. The only people who don&#39;t think it was petty bourgeois is the anarchists, and if it didn&#39;t have any active anarchists within the rebellion i suspect they would never bring it up.

[Organic Revolution]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 10:17 am

I hate when people make this an anarchist vs marxist topic .. its simply not &#33; im a trotskyist but i do have some support for the kronstadt rebellion. The kronstadt rebellion was unique it was not like the Tambov one where peasants/petty bourgeois and some anarchists were directly funded by whites. They call for better rights for both anarchists and socialists . They saw the Soviet movement soon becoming unjust and beurcratic. So they did what they saw needed to be and rebelled against the Soviet Union.

I support crushing counter-revolutions when their lead or have hard elements of bourgeois influence ,but the Kronstadt one simply didn&#39;t .

So the armed forces now are going to be the revolutionary element in society?

Listen, the only reason a liberal/anarchist brought Kronstadt up again is because it is one of the very few times in history anarchists have played a role.

Its why they harp on about Spain, which was just really a civil war, not a revolution. Their politics is based on using small events that involve a few anarchists and invariably lose the day and turn to reformism.

This ultimately isn&#39;t about demands or whether or not it was right to crush the rebellion, it is about the class nature of kronstadt. The only people who don&#39;t think it was petty bourgeois is the anarchists, and if it didn&#39;t have any active anarchists within the rebellion i suspect they would never bring it up.
No this is a people Vs. marxism debate. It is obvious, looking at the history of the treatment of anarchists by marxists that you believe in a flawed ideology. Trotsky sent the Red Army troops to try and &#39;crush&#39; the kronstadt rebellion. Our anarchist history is rich with struggle, and if you would get out of your bubble of hero worship and quit letting Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin ect. fill your head with bullshit, you would understand that the anarchists have been the most popular influence within working class politics. Read the State And Revolution, and you can see that lenin tries to cherry pick on anarchist ideas to gain popular support, and if you look at the history of the marxist state, you can see that the state lost much of its support when it turned into just that, a mega quasi-capitalist nation.

[Organic Revolution]

Why wouldnt anarchists bring it up? it is just one of the many examples of the oppressivness of the marxist state.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

Next year you guys will be telling us how the Iraq war is a great anarchist revolution and George Bush is an evil Marxist crushing you.... :rolleyes:

there&#39;s a reason why you lot don&#39;t play a role in history, its cos there&#39;s never enough of you to even be considered a significant minority.




Why wouldnt anarchists bring it up? it is just one of the many examples of the oppressivness of the marxist state.

workers states are oppressive. In fact all states are. The point though, is that the workers state oppresses the right class. And, the Red army did. Which is what you contest, if only because there were anarchists amongst them.

(i don&#39;t actually hate anarchists, in fact i know some who i like lots, just some at Revleft are little shitters&#33;)

[Coggeh]

Our anarchist history is rich with struggle, and if you would get out of your bubble of hero worship and quit letting Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin ect. fill your head with bullshit, you would understand that the anarchists have been the most popular influence within working class politics

Eh ... :blink: come again ? . Anarchism was never the popular influence when it came to the working class. Especially in todays world . I can&#39;t think of one example . ever :huh: . Im open on correction to this one .

[rebelworker]

So the armed forces now are going to be the revolutionary element in society?


Well aparently Trotsky and lenin thought the ones we are talking about were just a few years earlier, your just a walking contradiction man :lol:



Listen, the only reason a liberal/anarchist brought Kronstadt up again is because it is one of the very few times in history anarchists have played a role.

Actually the anarchist influence in kronstadt was quite limited, tthis is about workers democracy, not ideology.




Its why they harp on about Spain, which was just really a civil war, not a revolution. Their politics is based on using small events that involve a few anarchists and invariably lose the day and turn to reformism.


Actually it was a revolution for the working class, it wasnt a revolution for the petty burgeoise Communist Party and their burocratic masters in the Soviet Union.
Thats a simple question of class composition, and you sir are siding with the reactionaries.



This ultimately isn&#39;t about demands or whether or not it was right to crush the rebellion, it is about the class nature of kronstadt. The only people who don&#39;t think it was petty bourgeois is the anarchists, and if it didn&#39;t have any active anarchists within the rebellion i suspect they would never bring it up.

Again this is about class, and time and time again it has been proven that the Kronstadt rebellion represented a last cry for democracy and equality from the working class, and it was crushed by the newly forming burocratic ruling class.

Your arguments are starting to get really weak man, your just embarrasing yourself.
I hope in a few years your able to think clearly and look back on this and laugh.

[Coggeh]

I agree what rebelworker is saying . It was a wokers movement it have extremely limited anarchist involved yet its played about to be anarchists and peasants against a beurcratic state.

Just like in Spain they milk it as anarchists against communists when it was the workers against stalinists.

[Aurora]

Originally posted by Trotsky "Hue and cry over Kronstadt"
That was exactly the significance of the Kronstadt slogan, “Soviets without Communists,” which was immediately seized upon, not only by the SRs but by the bourgeois liberals as well. As a rather farsighted representative of capital, Professor Miliukov understood that to free the soviets from the leadership of the Bolsheviks would have meant within a short time to demolish the soviets themselves. The experience of the Russian soviets during the period of Menshevik and SR domination and, even more clearly, the experience of the German and Austrian soviets under the domination of the Social Democrats, proved this. Social Revolutionary-Anarchist soviets could serve only as a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship to capitalist restoration. They could play no other role, regardless of the “ideas” of their participants. The Kronstadt uprising thus had a counterrevolutionary character.
http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/...8-kronstadt.htm (http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/1938/1938-kronstadt.htm)


Here it is worth quoting from some of the statements issued by the crews of a number of ships, among them the mine-sweepers "Ural", "Orfei" and "Pobeditel": "The men of the White guards that are leading the rebels can do a lot of damage to the Republic, and they may not even hesitate to bomb Petrograd".
http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html


However, the final nail in the coffin for the anti-Bolshevik mythology built up around Kronstadt comes later. According to documents published in these two books new facts emerge about what happened in the town around Kronstadt. During the attack on Kronstadt, the workers of the town moved against the putschists and liberated the town even before the main forces of the Red Army arrived. So in reality what we had was not a workers&#39; and sailors&#39; rebellion against Bolshevism, but a workers&#39; and sailors&#39; Bolshevik uprising against the "rebels"&#33;
http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html


So, the real story is that the Kronstadt workers and sailors actually understood the real nature of these rebels far better than any of the later intellectuals who have tried to build up the myth of Kronstadt. The same can be said of the counterrevolutionary forces that were operating in Kronstadt. The former Tsarist prime-minister and finance minister, and in emigration the director of the Russian Bank in Paris, Kokovzev, transferred 225 thousand francs to the Kronstadt rebels. The Russian-Asian bank transferred 200 thousand francs. The French prime-minister, Briand, during the meeting with the former ambassador of Kerensky&#39;s government, Malachov, promised "any necessary help to Kronstadt".
http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html

[The Grey Blur]

I told you to read what Anarion just posted Coggy, it&#39;s a good article and really destroys the bullshit.


Well aparently Trotsky and lenin thought the ones we are talking about were just a few years earlier, your just a walking contradiction man
...

Except the red soldiers and sailors who were in Kronstadt in 1917 volunteered to join the Red Army, to take part in the workers crusade against capitalist intervention. None of them were left by 1921 - they were on the fronts, dying and killing for the worker&#39;s republic while these reactonary elements in Kronstadt has their pathetic uprising which was rightly crushed.

This is just pure historical opportunism by Anarchists - picking up on an event 10-15 years after it happened to discredit Trotsky.

[Aurora]

This is to the memory of all the brave red guards who fought the reactionary white scum at kronstadt fortress and in memory of the brave comrades who kicked the bastards out of the city before the red army arrived.May they always be remembered for the valiant contribution they made to the revolution.

Workers of the world unite&#33;
:hammer: :redstar:

[Aurora]

dude you know this is just going to turn into one big sectarian orgy
Why?it seems obvious from the evidence that the rebellion was organised by the whites. And surely everyone hates the whites right?

[The Grey Blur]

They gave their lives for the Socialist cause and the hope for a truly just society - Long life their memory&#33;

[rouchambeau]

Why?it seems obvious from the evidence that the rebellion was organised by the whites. And surely everyone hates the whites right?

Pull your thumb out of your ass and post the evidence.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

Why would the White Russians support freedom for Left Communists and Anarchists?

[rebelworker]

The makeup of the sailors durring the rebellion has already been covered in this thread, about 60% of them were there before the revolution and over 90% were oriinals from 1917.

Its just slander to justify the massacre.

[Organic Revolution]

HURRAH&#33; THANK GOD THE RED ARMY SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR LIBERATION&#33;

[BreadBros]

So the armed forces now are going to be the revolutionary element in society?


here is an interesting trend in the left to hold two mutually exclusive beliefs:

1. Soldiers are inherently reactionary and cannot be won to the revolution, since the military is a repressive institution;

2. Kronstadt sailors were the vanguard of the Russian revolution.

Luís Henrique

The way militaries operate is significantly different today than it was in 1917. Most Western armies today are professional, volunteer-based and highly specialized. Most of the people drawn to join it tend to be on the right of the political spectrum (nearly every poll of soldiers in the US proves this). During World War I the Russian army/navy were massive, conscription-based organizatons. Not to mention conditions and likelihood of survival were far more worse back then. I think it&#39;s fairly self-evident to see why the Russian army would have massive revolutionary sentiment within it while, say, the modern US army has at most a few conscientious objectors. As for Kronstadt sailors or any military grouping being the vanguard or revolutionary element, no one made that claim so stop building strawmen. What AS said was that Kronstadt sailors were one expression of an entire wave of working-class dissatisfaction with the direction of the Bolshevik leadership.


Listen, the only reason a liberal/anarchist brought Kronstadt up again is because it is one of the very few times in history anarchists have played a role.

Its why they harp on about Spain, which was just really a civil war, not a revolution. Their politics is based on using small events that involve a few anarchists and invariably lose the day and turn to reformism.

Actually anarchism has played a considerably large role in history and has been adopted by significant numbers of the working class throughout that time. That history is fairly evident and accessible if you look it up online. As for the Spanish revolution, a significant number of Marxists at the time did consider it to be a revolution. If you look at the changes in the economic structure and private property in Catalonia in 1936 it certainly seems to me that the anarchist/Marxist alliance managed to overthrow capitalism. If you have some concrete viewpoints on why the events in Spain constituted a civil war instead of a revolution then you should bring them up. However, I think the chances of anyone getting an original or substantive idea out of you is close to nill. Chances are you&#39;ll just call me an evil petty-bourgeois social-democratic anarchist White-Russian capitalist-roader liberal... :o

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Permanent Revolution+March 07, 2007 12:46 am--> (Permanent Revolution &#064; March 07, 2007 12:46 am)None of them were left by 1921 - they were on the fronts,

[/b]
Repeated for those who don&#39;t consider it neccesary to actually read the thread:

Devrimankara

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

If we take this information as being representative of the Kronstadt rebels as a whole it would suggest that 59% of the sailors had been there since at least 1916 whilst 93.9% had been there at the time of the October revolution, hardly a great change in the composition of the garrison from when it was the ‘stronghold of the revolution’ in 1917. [/b][/quote]

[Andy Bowden]

Can&#39;t we just sticky ONE Kronstadt thread, like the did Fidel betray Che one? Its a topic that comes up about a million times here.

[Coggeh]

Well of course Trotsky is going to call the rebellion counter revolutionary , their rebelling against the his beloved and what he saw at the time a "workers state".

Once again what rebelworker just stated was spot on , you can&#39;t use the excuses made by the very people who massacared them . Thats like asking for hitlers excuse for killing the jews and then agreeing with it (ok well its not like that , but u get what im talking about :) ) The rebellion at kronstadt (don&#39;t know how many times i&#39;ve said this) was unique it was alot different to all the other white and peasant ones because it was the only one not calling for a change of ideology but a better workers system as a whole . It is not counter revolutionary to try and improve the state via giveing more power to the working classes .

[Aurora]

Pull your thumb out of your ass and post the evidence.
http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html
Now that completly destroys your argument.And your not gonna like it so just bite your lip m&#39;kay?

Why would the White Russians support freedom for Left Communists and Anarchists?
My guess is they supported the weakening of the bolshevik state and didnt give a fuck about anarchists.

HURRAH&#33; THANK GOD THE RED ARMY SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR LIBERATION&#33;
Um no your a little confused,the red army slaughtered those fighting for reaction.

This thread is so pointless. Why try to stir sectarianism up?
Im not trying to stir sectarianism up,im just making a thread to the memory of those who fought reaction which is proven.In fact it would lessen sectarianism if people looked at the evidence and excepted it.

f you feel that the evidence obviously points in any direction their are likely people willing to debate you substantively in the actual Kronstadt thread:
Ya i did but nobody responded which isnt surprising.

Well anyway i encourage everyone to read this link Trotsky was right (http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html) and post any responses you may have in the other thread.


This thread is to the memory of those red soldiers,i was hoping that they wouldnt have their names shit on by people,but some people never learn :rolleyes:

[Keyser]

Yes, lets celebrate the slaughter of those proletarian revolutionaries who wanted the Russian revolution to be a revolution that was made by and for the working class. :rolleyes:

What about the Bolshevik slaughter of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine (RIAU) and other examples where the leninists/vanguardists crushed the power and political activity of the working class for their own goal of a party dictatorship as opposed to a geniune and democratic proletarian revolutionary society.

What evidence do you have that the Kronstadt rebels were in league or worked with the reactionary White forces, of course you have none, save the delusional ramblings of some Trotskyist cretin who placed an article on the marxist.com website.

And while we are on the subject of collaboration with the forces of reaction, please explain to us the rationale behind the very real and documented collaboration between the Bolsheviks and the reactionary Central Powers (Imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire) during 1918, handing over large portions of the Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states to these reactionary empires, despite the fact that the local populations of these countries did not want to live under the oppression of these two empires. The Bolshevik sell out to these two empires was one of the reasons that the RIAU took up arms in the first place, as the local population did not wish to swap one imperial tyranny for another, but wanted liberation, something the Bolsheviks always failed to deliver.

Then there is the Bolshevik&#39;s collaboration with the reactionary &#39;social democratic&#39; regime in Germany in the early 1920s, dealing in secret with the Germans to get weapons in exchange for secretly assisting in the rearmament of Germany in return for Germany supporting the Bolshevik regime. This despite the fact that the reactionary regime in Germany had crushed numerous working class uprisings in Bavaria (1919), Saxony (1923-24), Hamburg (1923) and Berlin (1923). When German soldiers and far-right Friekorps (the nucleus of what would later become the Nazi SA stomtroopers) were killing workers and revolutionaries, instead of assisting the working class of Germany, the Bolsheviks were making deals with the very regime in Germany that was killing workers.

A fine example of the Bolsheviks &#39;proletarian internationalism&#39; :rolleyes:

And we all know of the treason that was the New Economic Policy (NEP), which basically strengthend the capitalist mode of production, thus laying the foundations that made possible the eventual collapse of the USSR and the full blown restoration of capitalism in 1991.

It ceases to amaze me that despite all the evidence and history, there will always be idiots like Anarion who, like a broken record player, will keep playing the same old tune over and over again, regardless of any reality. For some this is due to ignorance and for others it&#39;s a deliberate attempt to cover up the very real treason made by the Bolsheviks against the working class and any chance that the Russian revolution gave for the possibility of a genuine revolution that would have liberated the workers from both capitalism and the state.

[The Author]

I think these quotations from Stalin in Volumes 6 and 7 of his Works on the need for self-criticism of Party practices which resulted in the Kronstadt rebellion are quite informative as in giving some explanation as to why Kronstadt happened in the first place. One could also argue this is also sound advice in understanding the uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Tiananmen Square in 1989- the party did not act according to the wishes of the workers and peasants, and serious self-criticism was necessary to rectify such mistakes rather than ignoring these problems and causing the workers to despair and take action.


Were we not late in repealing the surplus-appropriation
system? Did it not require such developments as Kronstadt
and Tambov to make us understand that it was no longer
possible to retain the conditions of War Communism?
Did not Ilyich himself admit that on this front we had
sustained a more serious defeat than any we had suffered
at the Denikin or Kolchak fronts?


For, either one thing or the other: either
we criticise ourselves and allow non-Party people to
criticise our work—in which case we can hope that our
work in the countryside will make progress; or we do not
permit such criticism—in which case we shall be criticised
by events like the revolts in Kronstadt, in Tambov
and in Georgia. I think that criticism of the first kind
is preferable to criticism of the second kind. That is why
we must not fear criticism, whether from Party people
or, especially, from non-Party people.


Bear in mind that under
the new conditions, under NEP, another Tambov, or
another Kronstadt, is by no means precluded. The
Transcaucasian, the Georgian revolt was a grave warning.
Such revolts are possible in future if we do not
learn to expose and eliminate our evils, if we go on making
it appear outwardly that all is well.

That is why I think that what we must speak of here
is not the shortcomings or exaggerations of individual
writers who expose the defects in our work, but their
merits in doing so.


The issue is as follows: either we, the entire
Party, allow the non-Party peasants and workers to criticise
us, or we shall be criticised by means of revolts.
The revolt in Georgia was criticism. The revolt in Tambov
was also criticism. The revolt in Kronstadt—was
not that criticism? One thing or the other: either we abandon
this official optimism and official approach to the
matter, do not fear criticism and allow ourselves to be
criticised by the non-Party workers and peasants, who,
after all, are the ones to feel the effects of our mistakes,
or we do not do this, and discontent will accumulate
and grow, and we shall have criticism in the form of revolts.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 02:46 pm
I hate when people make this an anarchist vs marxist topic .. its simply not &#33; im a trotskyist but i do have some support for the kronstadt rebellion. The kronstadt rebellion was unique it was not like the Tambov one where peasants/petty bourgeois and some anarchists were directly funded by whites. They call for better rights for both anarchists and socialists . They saw the Soviet movement soon becoming unjust and beurcratic. So they did what they saw needed to be and rebelled against the Soviet Union.

I support crushing counter-revolutions when their lead or have hard elements of bourgeois influence ,but the Kronstadt one simply didn&#39;t .
I agree comrade well said.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by Amusing [email protected] 06, 2007 07:47 am
And on that subject, it was really tactical mistakes by the Red Army leadership that led to 10,000 soldiers being slaughtered, as you put it. To try and attack the garrison in the manner that they did, was incredibly stupid.

Miles from the Communist League made a longer, more informative post on this before. I&#39;ll dig out the link and reply to some of the other points later on today.
I had the same thought, his post on it was very good and more balanced than most who seem more intent on vindicating one ideology or another.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 06:48 am
As for Kronstadt sailors or any military grouping being the vanguard or revolutionary element, no one made that claim so stop building strawmen.
No, in this thread nobody made that claim, but, yes, there are people on the left who make it - or related claims. I remember for instance of a young comrade here in Revleft countering the claim that "the Bolsheviks lead October Revolution" with the even more absurd "no, the Kronstadt Sailors did it".

My post wasn&#39;t referring specifically to any particular post, much less to AS&#39;.

Luís Henrique

[The Grey Blur]

Originally posted by Anarchism [email protected] 07, 2007 04:48 pm
Yes, lets mourn the slaughter of those proletarian revolutionaries who wanted the Russian revolution to be a revolution that was made by and for the working class.
Corrected.

[Organic Revolution]

Originally posted by Permanent Revolution+March 07, 2007 01:37 pm--> (Permanent Revolution &#064; March 07, 2007 01:37 pm)
Anarchism [email protected] 07, 2007 04:48 pm
Yes, lets mourn the slaughter of those proletarian revolutionaries who wanted the Russian revolution to be a revolution that was made by and for the working class.
Corrected. [/b]
So I dont get it, you want to mourn the real revolutionaries who fought against the Red Army at Kronstadt, but you also think it was wrong?

Edit: Im hoping you know this is sarcasm

[Keyser]

Corrected.

There is no need for a correction, I was being sarcastic.

Anarion basically made a post that celebrates the massacre of revolutionaries, I was merely using sarcasm to begin my response that.

[rouchambeau]

That link really doesn&#39;t address my argument at all. Do you even know what I am arguing for?

[Stone]

es, lets celebrate the slaughter of those proletarian revolutionaries who wanted the Russian revolution to be a revolution that was made by and for the working class. rolleyes.

What the fuck? Your ilk staged a violent insurrection against the soviet worker councils and in the process murdered or wounded thousands of young workers and peasants in the Red Army. It&#39;s just pitiful to whine about losing a battle.



What about the Bolshevik slaughter of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the Ukraine (RIAU)

Once again, stop whining about lost battles. The anarchist scum with a force of some 50 thousand joined the counterrevolution against the soviet workers&#39; councils and appropriately suffered a defeat. Don&#39;t depict it as atrocities against unarmed protesters when in fact it was a legitimate reaction to an armed insurrection.



And while we are on the subject of collaboration with the forces of reaction, please explain to us the rationale behind the very real and documented collaboration between the Bolsheviks and the reactionary Central Powers (Imperial Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire) during 1918

How was this collaboration? Soviet Russia did not turn around to join the Central Powers in fighting the Entente.



Then there is the Bolshevik&#39;s collaboration with the reactionary &#39;social democratic&#39; regime in Germany in the early 1920s

This is a distortion of the situation. The Bolsheviks did not renounce the Spartacists or the KPD and it was through these allies that they opposed the Weimar Republic.



were killing workers and revolutionaries, instead of assisting the working class of Germany, the Bolsheviks were making deals with the very regime in Germany that was killing workers.

It was not the duty of the Bolsheviks to assist the German workers. German workers themselves are supposed to foment revolution. "Assisting working class" sounds like a euphemism for war.



But our enemies and yours deceive you when they say that the Russian Soviet Government wishes to plant communism in Polish soil with the bayonets of Russian Red Army men. A communist order is possible only where the vast majority of the working people are penetrated with the idea of creating it by their own strength. Only then can it be solid; for only then can communist policy strike deep roots in a country. The communists of Russia are at present striving only to defend their own soil, their own constructive work; they are not striving, and cannot strive, to plant communism by force in other countries.” [Krasnaya Kniga: Shornik Diplomatischeskikh Dokumentov o Russko-Pol’skikh Otnosheniyakh, 1918-1920, p88, quoted from Carr, EH, The Bolshevik Revolution 3, p165, London (1953)]

[OneBrickOneVoice]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 01:38 am

dude you know this is just going to turn into one big sectarian orgy
Why?it seems obvious from the evidence that the rebellion was organised by the whites. And surely everyone hates the whites right?
It&#39;s funny how you agree with the actions taken at Kronsdadt yet you whine and moan when rich landowners had their land taken away by collectivization and given to the workers, and things like that.

[Enragé]

This is to the memory of all the kronstadt sailors and all the red guards who fought and died for the cause.

May the graves of counterrevolutionary leaders, whether they claimed to be anarchist or bolshevik, be pissed on, desecrated and their names forever disgraced.

:AO: :redstar: :hammer: :banner:


NOW COULD WE ALL SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT SOME BATTLE 86 YEARS AGO ABOUT WHICH WE ONLY DISAGREE BECAUSE WE HAVE A FUCKING DIFFERENT PERCEPTION OF HISTORY OF

IF THE REBELLION WAS ESSENTIALLY THE DOING OF THE WHITES, THEN FUCK THE "ANARCHISTS"
IF THE REBELLION WAS THE LAST STAND OF THE REVOLUTION, THEN FUCK THE BOLSHEVIKS

i&#39;ll leave you with this;
The demands of the Kronstadt Sailors
Immediate new elections to the Soviets. The present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda.
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 organisations.
The organisation, at the latest on 10th 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 the place of the political sections 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&#39; control groups.
We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does not utilise wage labour.

Now, anyone, regardless of political stance, who sees these demands (im not talking the timing of the rebellion or its "actual motivations") as unreasonable, can go fuck himself.

case closed.

[Ezekiel]

The fact that a new topic was started just to put that at the top clearly shows this is just an attempt to stir up sectartianism.

I am a Leninist, Maoist, and even I think they shouldn&#39;t have been killed. I believe it was a &#39;non-antagonistic contradiction,&#39; that the Whites were trying to use against the revolutionary forces. They should have just let them be, at least for the time, and talk it out when they were done finishing off the Whites.
I realize that oversimplifying it. But not by far.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Anarion+March 06, 2007 06:05 pm--> (Anarion &#064; March 06, 2007 06:05 pm)
Trotsky "Hue and cry over Kronstadt"
That was exactly the significance of the Kronstadt slogan, “Soviets without Communists,” which was immediately seized upon, not only by the SRs but by the bourgeois liberals as well. As a rather farsighted representative of capital, Professor Miliukov understood that to free the soviets from the leadership of the Bolsheviks would have meant within a short time to demolish the soviets themselves. The experience of the Russian soviets during the period of Menshevik and SR domination and, even more clearly, the experience of the German and Austrian soviets under the domination of the Social Democrats, proved this. Social Revolutionary-Anarchist soviets could serve only as a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship to capitalist restoration. They could play no other role, regardless of the “ideas” of their participants. The Kronstadt uprising thus had a counterrevolutionary character.
http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/...8-kronstadt.htm (http://www.marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/1938/1938-kronstadt.htm)


Here it is worth quoting from some of the statements issued by the crews of a number of ships, among them the mine-sweepers "Ural", "Orfei" and "Pobeditel": "The men of the White guards that are leading the rebels can do a lot of damage to the Republic, and they may not even hesitate to bomb Petrograd".
http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html


However, the final nail in the coffin for the anti-Bolshevik mythology built up around Kronstadt comes later. According to documents published in these two books new facts emerge about what happened in the town around Kronstadt. During the attack on Kronstadt, the workers of the town moved against the putschists and liberated the town even before the main forces of the Red Army arrived. So in reality what we had was not a workers&#39; and sailors&#39; rebellion against Bolshevism, but a workers&#39; and sailors&#39; Bolshevik uprising against the "rebels"&#33;
http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html


So, the real story is that the Kronstadt workers and sailors actually understood the real nature of these rebels far better than any of the later intellectuals who have tried to build up the myth of Kronstadt. The same can be said of the counterrevolutionary forces that were operating in Kronstadt. The former Tsarist prime-minister and finance minister, and in emigration the director of the Russian Bank in Paris, Kokovzev, transferred 225 thousand francs to the Kronstadt rebels. The Russian-Asian bank transferred 200 thousand francs. The French prime-minister, Briand, during the meeting with the former ambassador of Kerensky&#39;s government, Malachov, promised "any necessary help to Kronstadt".
http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html [/b]
I see you have already brought up what I intended to cite. I think that this alone is potent evidence against the anarchists and the ultra-lefts, who, to this very day, continue to side with the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. As Trotsky correctly pointed out, the fact that they continue to repeat the bourgeois lies about Kronstadt, the bourgeois lie that Stalinism is inherent in Bolshevism (why in the hell did Stalin have to destroy Lenin&#39;s party, kill off the Bolshevik Committee, sabotage and destroy revolutions, kill Trotsky, etc. if this claim is true?), etc. proves that they are forever dead for revolution.


HURRAH&#33; THANK GOD THE RED ARMY SLAUGHTERED PEOPLE FIGHTING FOR LIBERATION&#33;

[Read bourgeois liberation at the end&#33;]

You ultra-left and anarcho-types are the same people that voluntarily left power in the hands of the reactionaries during the Spanish revolution, greatly assisting the counterrevolution. Your anti-revolutionary nonsense is no surprise to me. No amount of your nonsense will change the fact that the revolutionaries have historically been on one side of the barriade while your types were on the other side with the reactionaries&#33; I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;

[black magick hustla]

people do not realize that quoting trotsky as "evidence" is not really a good argument because trotsky was a freaking leader of the bolsheviks and of the red army at that time. (and concidentally, it is the only shit you trots quote)

keep tryin

[bcbm]

You ultra-left and anarcho-types are the same people that voluntarily left power in the hands of the reactionaries during the Spanish revolution, greatly assisting the counterrevolution.

What the fuck are you talking about? The anarchists and non-Stalinist marxists were the fucking Spanish revolution, it was the Stalinists supporting the bourgeois state, suppressing the militias, etc, etc.


Your anti-revolutionary nonsense is no surprise to me. No amount of your nonsense will change the fact that the revolutionaries have historically been on one side of the barriade while your types were on the other side with the reactionaries&#33;

Completely absurd and utter nonsense. You either do not ready history, or are just so woefully stupid that you believe that crap. Ultra-lefts and anarchists have been a major part in most of the major revolutions to date in this century, even you precious "Marxist" ones, and have fought and died fighting for their class- the workers.


I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;

I can&#39;t even find words to express how completely absurd this statement is and how incredibly, woefully naive and braindead you must be to even utter it.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 04:11 am
I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;
I find it totally bizarre that you can make such an assertion when the only non-platformist, militant anti-fascist groups are those started by anarchists.

While most Marxist organisations participate in groups like Unite Against Fascism (a liberal and pacifist anti-fascist group) anarchists and "ultra-leftists" are actually on the streets fighting the causes and participants of fascism.

You simply have no grasp of reality. That&#39;s clearly a fact.

[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+March 08, 2007 04:26 am--> (The Anarchist Tension &#064; March 08, 2007 04:26 am)
[email protected] 08, 2007 04:11 am
I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;
I find it totally bizarre that you can make such an assertion when the only non-platformist, militant anti-fascist groups are those started by anarchists. [/b]
TAT just PM&#39;ed me, and probably all the admins, complaining about Axel&#39;s statement. Lemme say right now he has no right to be shocked, and I hope no admin is senseless enough to give a warning point for it.

Since in fact there are anarchists on this board (the RAAN crowd) who have advocated fascist-like, LaRoucheite-like physical attacks on "Leninists". And put out a leaflet with a photoshop job comparing themselves to the Saigon regime&#39;s executioners.

Which is more shocking: to suggest it&#39;s possible for anarchists to undergo a LaRouche-like evolution to the ultraright.....or for some anarchists to actually take the first steps down that road?

It&#39;s ridiculous to not be outraged by a crime - only by people who insist on talking about it.

(As for TAT&#39;s formal argument here: We like violent tactics, therefore we can&#39;t become facists. Hm. There seems to be some flaw in that reasoning somewhere.....)

[Devrim]

I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;
I had to look Stormfront up on wiki as I had no idea who they were. This is quite a strange suggestion though. I would think that it would be far more likely to find &#39;Marxists&#39; collaborating with fascists.
In Turkey today the İsçi Partisi (Worker&#39;s Party-either Maoist, or ex-Maoist) collaborates with the fascist MHP. There is a certain logic in this. Starting from the Leninist position on national liberation, all you have to do is typify the country as an oppressed nation, and then hey presto...there you are in bed with the fascists.

In fact climbing into bed with nationalists is something that Trotskyism seems to do quite well:


Originally posted by Socialist [email protected] 28.11.87, SR, Dec. 87
We have no choice but to support the Khomeini regime.
...it would be wrong to strike...
socialists should not call for the disruption of military supplies...
not support action which would lead to the collapse of the military effort.

In fact every time from 1939 onwards that there has been a war, Trotskyists have taken the position of backing one side, or the other. Generally, they have little interest in the politics, of the regime they are supporting and as long as it is &#39;anti-imperialist&#39;, they will support any group of anti-working class reactionaries, be they Stalinist, liberals, fascists, or religious fundamentalists.

When so-called Leninists call for social peace in times of war, one imagines that Lenin must be turning in his grave.

It is true some anarchists do this as well, and should be condemned also, but the theoretical roots for it lie in Lenin&#39;s work on imperialism.

Devrim

[Severian]

Originally posted by black coffee black [email protected] 08, 2007 01:36 am

You ultra-left and anarcho-types are the same people that voluntarily left power in the hands of the reactionaries during the Spanish revolution, greatly assisting the counterrevolution.

What the fuck are you talking about? The anarchists and non-Stalinist marxists were the fucking Spanish revolution, it was the Stalinists supporting the bourgeois state, suppressing the militias, etc, etc.
Let me refer you to "Towards a Fresh Revolution" (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/fod/towardshistory.html), from the time, by a small group of Spanish anarchists who were honest revolutionaries, exposing the reformist treachery of the CNT-FAI leadership. Some of those anarchist leaders actually became ministers in a capitalist government.

Let me refer you also to this study group thread on "Towards a Fresh Revolution" (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showforum=68) You might want to read and maybe join that discussion? There&#39;s a second thread in the Study Group subforum, too, on the second half of the document.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 04:44 am
It is true some anarchists do this as well, and should be condemned also, but the theoretical roots for it lie in Lenin&#39;s work on imperialism.
Just a teensy bit idealist, maybe? Class collaboration is a lot older than Lenin, and can&#39;t rationally be blamed on any of his writing.

As for the path that takes some left groups over to the ultraright, it has more to do with ultra-sectarianism - total divorce from the living class struggle. Without any link to the real class struggle, they&#39;ve got nothing to anchor them, and can drift in any direction.

That&#39;s a common thread between the LaRouchites, the New Alliance Party, and others who&#39;ve taken this road. A bit about the LaRouchites, who I&#39;d say are a classic example of the phenom. (http://dennisking.org/zmag.htm)

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 10:16 pm
people do not realize that quoting trotsky as "evidence" is not really a good argument because trotsky was a freaking leader of the bolsheviks and of the red army at that time. (and concidentally, it is the only shit you trots quote)
Actually, there&#39;s also an article drawing on previously secret documents from the Soviet archives. Linked twice at least in this thread. Funny how some people never want to deal with that evidence.

Also, a bit of reasoning is valid or invalid regardless of whose mouth it comes out of. So feel free to deal with Trotsky&#39;s arguments on their merits.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 03:44 pm
Just to finish on the class nature of the rebels lets look at the class composition of the Provisional Revolutionary committee of the Kronstadt soviet:
* Petritchenko, chief quartermaster of the battleship &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Yakovenko, liaison telephonist to the Kronstadt section,
* Ossossov, boiler man in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Arkhipov, chief engineer,
* Perepelkin, electrician in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Patrouchev, chief electrician in the &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Koupolov, head male nurse,
* Verchinin, sailor in the &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Toukin, worker in the &#39;Electrotechnical&#39; factory,
* Romanenko, docks maintenance worker,
* Orechin, headmaster of the Third labour School,
* Valk, sawmill worker,
* Pavlov, worker in a marine mining shop,
* Boikev, head of the building section of the Kronstadt fortress,
* Kilgast, harbour pilot.

It seems like it was composed of workers, and sailors to me.
How dishonestly can you argue? Obviously there weren&#39;t a lot of farms on the Kronstadt naval base&#33; Your list doesn&#39;t address what class these sailors were recruited from - what class they belonged to before joining the Navy.

Which was the point made by Trotsky and others. Rather than address it, you knock down a straw man.

Edit: I later saw you made some arguments on page 1 that were a little better...and some that were just as outrageous. But I&#39;m not going to go through &#39;em all.

One thing you never, ever, see, no matter how many repetitive threads people start about Kronstadt: an attempt to make some reasoned, fact-based argument about what exactly the Bolshevik-led government did that was so horrible.

Lemme suggest that if you were to even try to do that, you&#39;d have to start before Kronstadt. &#39;Cause putting down an armed rebellion, and especially military mutiny, is what all governments do. Heck, even an anarchist order would have to put down attempts to establish governments, if it was going to last more than a week.

So you&#39;d have to show what the Bolsheviks had done previously that made it justifiable to try to overthrow them. And don&#39;t stop with a purely negative rejection - give us some reasons to think that some other force could do better than the Bolsheviks in that situation. Tell us what better course of action could have been taken in that situation.

As always, it&#39;s not just what you&#39;re against - it&#39;s what you&#39;re for that counts.

Lemme suggest that if anyone had a coherent argument along these lines - they wouldn&#39;t have to keep going on about Kronstadt. Which is basically an emotional argument.

[Coggeh]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 08, 2007 10:26 am
While most Marxist organisations participate in groups like Unite Against Fascism (a liberal and pacifist anti-fascist group) anarchists and "ultra-leftists" are actually on the streets fighting the causes and participants of fascism.

Oh ya because hurling rocks at people on the streets will raise class conciousness <_< . You make it out like uniteing against fascism is a bad thing ? we don&#39;t spend all our time on the same issue that fascists suck(which is pretty obvious to people by now) at least marxist have a progressive view on society and how to change it into a united workers movement .

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 11:28 am
Obviously there weren&#39;t a lot of farms on the Kronstadt naval base&#33; Your list doesn&#39;t address what class these sailors were recruited from - what class they belonged to before joining the Navy.
Besides, the list seem to show an important participation of graduated personel - the military equivalent of bosses.


So you&#39;d have to show what the Bolsheviks had done previously that made it justifiable to try to overthrow them.

That is simple: the Kronstadt sailors&#39; expressed it quite clearly in their demands.

It comes down to two different orders of problems:

1. The soviets no longer being representative and powerful, while the Party was rising to a preeminent position;

2. The degradation of the relationships between agriculture and industry (the requistions mentioned by the sailors).

Then, of course, we should see if the proposals raised by the Kronstadt sailors (free elections with electoral campaign for the soviets, restoration of property rights for the peasants) properly addressed those issues. And finally, discuss whether going to mutiny during a civil war against reaction was a good idea, regardless of how justifiable their grievances were.

Luís Henrique

[Coggeh]

"Property Rights " ? so this being an "anarchist rebellion" they would be supporting the right to private property ........ Well now im confused. I&#39;m really unsure about this issue . Best i shut up ;)

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Severian+March 08, 2007 11:42 am--> (Severian @ March 08, 2007 11:42 am)
Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 08, 2007 04:26 am

[email protected] 08, 2007 04:11 am
I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;
I find it totally bizarre that you can make such an assertion when the only non-platformist, militant anti-fascist groups are those started by anarchists.
TAT just PM&#39;ed me, and probably all the admins, complaining about Axel&#39;s statement. Lemme say right now he has no right to be shocked, and I hope no admin is senseless enough to give a warning point for it.

Since in fact there are anarchists on this board (the RAAN crowd) who have advocated fascist-like, LaRoucheite-like physical attacks on "Leninists". And put out a leaflet with a photoshop job comparing themselves to the Saigon regime&#39;s executioners.

Which is more shocking: to suggest it&#39;s possible for anarchists to undergo a LaRouche-like evolution to the ultraright.....or for some anarchists to actually take the first steps down that road?

It&#39;s ridiculous to not be outraged by a crime - only by people who insist on talking about it.

(As for TAT&#39;s formal argument here: We like violent tactics, therefore we can&#39;t become facists. Hm. There seems to be some flaw in that reasoning somewhere.....) [/b]
I didn&#39;t "spam" the admins or suggest he should receive a warning point. I PMed you and asked if you could speak to him about it.

Also, I don&#39;t understand your position? Are you saying it is both unacceptable for RAAn members and Axel to say such things or that it is acceptable for both to say them? Or, is it ok for Axel to say it and not RAAN?

I&#39;m asking for an administrative opinion, not a political one.

[Vargha Poralli]

2. The degradation of the relationships between agriculture and industry (the requistions mentioned by the sailors).

Which has been addressed in the New Economic Policy. One thing that anarchists fail to understand is that it is this event which eventually lead the party to give up war communism. Still NEP was also used as a evidence that Lenin was a "State Capitalist".

The reason why this event generates more attack from anarchists is that they are hell bent on focusing on the Individuals(Lenin and Trotsky) than the material conditions thus exposing their own hypocrisy.That also explains branding all Marxists(Including Marx) as "Authoritarian Socialists".


Some Leninists are also wrong in this.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 10:44 am
In Turkey today the İsçi Partisi (Worker&#39;s Party-either Maoist, or ex-Maoist) collaborates with the fascist MHP. There is a certain logic in this. Starting from the Leninist position on national liberation, all you have to do is typify the country as an oppressed nation, and then hey presto...there you are in bed with the fascists.
Remarkably, however, Lenin did not take such position regarding WWI. Many other Russian leftists did it, though: mensheviks, SRs, and even anarchists.

But you seem to realise that:


When so-called Leninists call for social peace in times of war, one imagines that Lenin must be turning in his grave.

So, why do you say that


It is true some anarchists do this as well, and should be condemned also, but the theoretical roots for it lie in Lenin&#39;s work on imperialism.

We should realise how extremely difficult it is to resist the ideological push for war when it begins (a good read on this is by Victor Serge, in the beggining of his memoirs: with remarkable honesty, he realises that he was only saved from the chauvinist epydemics by the fact that he was in jail during the crisis that led to war).

It is this push that makes leftists of all colours defect and go to the devil, not theoretical imperfections. In fact, there is no "theorical armour" that can protect you from class treason, because your affiliation to the working class is not a merely intellectual phenomenon.

Also, as Severian seems to be hinting, class collaboration, in general, is a different thing from whatever makes organisations undertake the LaRouchite path directly to the ultra-right (instead of to the center-right via center-left). In this last case, I dare say that the abstract cult of violence (which cannot be found nowhere in Lenin, must I say) that plagues the left is the responsible. Now, the direct cause for such cult of violence is, like Severian points, the lack of real ties to real class struggle - the class clause being forgot, only the struggle part remains, and pseudo-radicalism of the means substitutes for diminishing radicalism on the aims. Also, historically, it would be accurate to point that the abstract cult of violence has always been a disease more of the anarchist movement than of the socialist one - though, evidently, it is far from absent in the "marxist" left (the LaRouchites themselves having originated there)

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 12:40 pm
"Property Rights " ? so this being an "anarchist rebellion" they would be supporting the right to private property ........ Well now im confused. I&#39;m really unsure about this issue . Best i shut up ;)
Why should you be confused? The defence of petty-bourgeois property is not foreign at all to at least some anarchist tendencies.

From the Kronstadt sailors demands:


...
3. The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant organisations.
...
11. 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.
...
15. We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does not utilise wage labour.


As it easy to see, those demands are incompatible with the idea that the sailors were demanding a radicalisation in the Revolution. The opposite is true. (whether they were right in demanding a slow down in the Revolution, or not, is a completely different issue. But to paint them as ultra-leftists seems to be an ex-post rationalisation, not supported by their own speech.)

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 06:48 am
During World War I the Russian army/navy were massive, conscription-based organizatons.
Yet, at least a half of the Kronstadt leaders, as the list provided by devrim shows, were clearly professional soldiers. You don&#39;t get to be quartermaster, head nurse or chief electrician if you aren&#39;t making a carreer in the military.

Luís Henrique

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Severian+March 08, 2007 11:28 am--> (Severian &#064; March 08, 2007 11:28 am)
Originally posted by devrimankara+March 05, 2007 03:44 pm--> (devrimankara &#064; March 05, 2007 03:44 pm) Just to finish on the class nature of the rebels lets look at the class composition of the Provisional Revolutionary committee of the Kronstadt soviet:
* Petritchenko, chief quartermaster of the battleship &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Yakovenko, liaison telephonist to the Kronstadt section,
* Ossossov, boiler man in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Arkhipov, chief engineer,
* Perepelkin, electrician in the battleship &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Patrouchev, chief electrician in the &#39;Petropavlovsk&#39;,
* Koupolov, head male nurse,
* Verchinin, sailor in the &#39;Sebastopol&#39;,
* Toukin, worker in the &#39;Electrotechnical&#39; factory,
* Romanenko, docks maintenance worker,
* Orechin, headmaster of the Third labour School,
* Valk, sawmill worker,
* Pavlov, worker in a marine mining shop,
* Boikev, head of the building section of the Kronstadt fortress,
* Kilgast, harbour pilot.

It seems like it was composed of workers, and sailors to me. [/b]
How dishonestly can you argue? Obviously there weren&#39;t a lot of farms on the Kronstadt naval base&#33; Your list doesn&#39;t address what class these sailors were recruited from - what class they belonged to before joining the Navy.



Which was the point made by Trotsky and others. Rather than address it, you knock down a straw man.

Edit: I later saw you made some arguments on page 1 that were a little better...and some that were just as outrageous. But I&#39;m not going to go through &#39;em all.

[/b]

Originally posted by Devrim on page 1


Israel [email protected] in Kronstadt, 1917-1921: The Fate of a Soviet Democracy

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



If we take this information as being representative of the Kronstadt rebels as a whole it would suggest that 59% of the sailors had been there since at least 1916 whilst 93.9% had been there at the time of the October revolution, hardly a great change in the composition of the garrison from when it was the ‘stronghold of the revolution’ in 1917.

I would suspect that those elected to the Soviet committee were amongst the older more respected members of the garrison/workforce, i.e. those who had been workers/sailors there for a long time a thouroghly proletarianised whatever their family background.


So you&#39;d have to show what the Bolsheviks had done previously that made it justifiable to try to overthrow them. And don&#39;t stop with a purely negative rejection - give us some reasons to think that some other force could do better than the Bolsheviks in that situation. Tell us what better course of action could have been taken in that situation.

As always, it&#39;s not just what you&#39;re against - it&#39;s what you&#39;re for that counts.

Lemme suggest that if anyone had a coherent argument along these lines - they wouldn&#39;t have to keep going on about Kronstadt. Which is basically an emotional argument.

Of course you are right. Actually, I didn&#39;t bring up Kronstadt. I just responded to some of the more hysterical/Trotskyist/Stalinist rantings.

What it comes down to then is the nature of the Soviet state in 1921. Was it a state that represented proletarian interests, or the interests of capital?

Is Krondstadt a surpression of the working class by the state on behalf of capital, or is in indeed a tragady?

More important perhaps is what lessons we learn from it.


Luís Henrique
So, why do you say that




It is true some anarchists do this as well, and should be condemned also, but the theoretical roots for it lie in Lenin&#39;s work on imperialism.



We should realise how extremely difficult it is to resist the ideological push for war when it begins (a good read on this is by Victor Serge, in the beggining of his memoirs: with remarkable honesty, he realises that he was only saved from the chauvinist epydemics by the fact that he was in jail during the crisis that led to war).

It is this push that makes leftists of all colours defect and go to the devil, not theoretical imperfections. In fact, there is no "theorical armour" that can protect you from class treason, because your affiliation to the working class is not a merely intellectual phenomenon.

All of the above is true. However, it is also true that it is much easier to cross this class line when you have an ideology that advocates it.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+March 08, 2007 01:10 pm--> (Luís Henrique @ March 08, 2007 01:10 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 12:40 pm
"Property Rights " ? so this being an "anarchist rebellion" they would be supporting the right to private property ........ Well now im confused. I&#39;m really unsure about this issue . Best i shut up ;)
Why should you be confused? The defence of petty-bourgeois property is not foreign at all to at least some anarchist tendencies.

From the Kronstadt sailors demands:


...
3. The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant organisations.
...
11. 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.
...
15. We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does not utilise wage labour.


As it easy to see, those demands are incompatible with the idea that the sailors were demanding a radicalisation in the Revolution. The opposite is true. (whether they were right in demanding a slow down in the Revolution, or not, is a completely different issue. But to paint them as ultra-leftists seems to be an ex-post rationalisation, not supported by their own speech.)

Luís Henrique [/b]
As I wrote earlier:


Again it doesn&#39;t look that petty bourgeois to me. Admittedly points 11, and 15 do offer concessions to the poor peasantry, and can not be described in any way as Socialist measures. However, it does stress without using hired labor, and by personal labor. If we compare this to the NEP:


wiki

promulgated by decree on March 21, 1921, "On the Replacement of Foodstuff and Natural Resource Assessment by a Natural Tax." In essence, the decree required the khulacks, middle-class farmers, to give the government a specified amount of any surplus agricultural, raw product, and fodder, and allowed them to keep the remaining surplus to use as capital or to trade for industrial goods. Further decrees refined the policy and expanded it to include some industries.


I find it hard to believe that anybody comparing the two programmes could see the Kronstadt one as the petty bourgeois one. Yes, it (the NEP) was brought in after the Kronstadt uprising, but was actually proposed by Trotsky one year earlier.

Devrim

[Vargha Poralli]

I would suspect that those elected to the Soviet committee were amongst the older more respected members of the garrison/workforce, i.e. those who had been workers/sailors there for a long time a thouroghly proletarianised whatever their family background.

But whatever class they came from is not a matter. The point is they rebeled when the Soviet State was vulnerable and the White had a base very near to Kronstadt . Anyone who is sensible in Lenin&#39;s or Trotsky&#39;s position would have done that. Men make their own history not according to their will but according to their material conditions. The opening in 18th brumaire.Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ch01.htm)


Of course you are right. Actually, I didn&#39;t bring up Kronstadt. I just responded to some of the more hysterical/Trotskyist/Stalinist rantings.

One of the main rantings was this Link (http://www.marxist.com/History/Trotsky_was_right.html). It was written after opening up of previously secret Soviet archives in mid 1990&#39;s. Trotsky died in 1940. How is it that it is rant we are repeating Trotsky&#39;s words if that is what you mean ? None of anarchists and you have never clicked that and read what it says. So those hysterical/Trotskyist/Stalinist ranting does not even nears the hypocrisy of yours(where do Stalinist came in to it anyway. LeftHenry just tried to justify Stalin&#39;s act in this thread and calling him a Stalinist is really a shame to all Stalinists. He is not a one.)



Is Krondstadt a suppression of the working class by the state on behalf of capital, or is in indeed a tragady?


It is indeed a tragedy even according to Lenin and Trotsky. the later had proposed to abandon war communism even before it and the former along with central commitee decided to abandon after that incident. New Economic Policy is the outcome of this particular event. But that is used as a evidence that Lenin was wrong in Imperialism and that He was a "State Capitalist". Yet another hypocrisy of anarchists and ultra lefts. It is you waho are the ones focused on Individuals rather than events.


More important perhaps is what lessons we learn from it.

It is the tragedy. The bourgeoisie had learnt a hell lot from October while the Workers had not. Thanks to Anarchists and Ultra Lefts.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+March 08, 2007 10:26 am--> (The Anarchist Tension &#064; March 08, 2007 10:26 am)
[email protected] 08, 2007 04:11 am
I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;
I find it totally bizarre that you can make such an assertion when the only non-platformist, militant anti-fascist groups are those started by anarchists.

While most Marxist organisations participate in groups like Unite Against Fascism (a liberal and pacifist anti-fascist group) anarchists and "ultra-leftists" are actually on the streets fighting the causes and participants of fascism.

You simply have no grasp of reality. That&#39;s clearly a fact. [/b]
Several years ago a comrade actually showed me posts from a Fascist board, proving that there were indeed Anarchists collaborating with Fascists.

And it is still no surprise to this very day that you types continue to side with the bourgeoisie at every decisive phase in the class struggle&#33;

The RAAN&#39;s individual terrorism is (as well as some other anarcho and ultra-left types around here&#33;) also is an indication of the possiblity of your kind slipping toward the ultra-right. Such terrorism and vehement anti-Marxism clearly indicates that in the decisive hour, such people can only play the same role as policemen and fascists in regard to the revolution.

Are you gonig to take an honest approach, or are you just going to sit around and continue to do the propaganda of the bourgeoisie for them?&#33; You are pretty quiet about the crimes of the whiteguards, but whenever the Bolsheviks justly killed a counterrevolutionary, you cry foul along with the bourgeois chorus.

As for your "actual fighting," vandalism, individual fighting with the police, burning random shops, etc. happen to be completely counterproductive. It does not take much thinking to figure out why anarchists have virtually no authority amongst advanced workres. Most of their authority is in fact with disgruntled teenagers, not workers.

[Severian]

Originally posted by The Anarchist [email protected] 08, 2007 06:44 am
I didn&#39;t "spam" the admins or suggest he should receive a warning point. I PMed you and asked if you could speak to him about it.

I&#39;m asking for an administrative opinion, not a political one.
Maybe I misunderstood your PM....but if you&#39;re just asking me to speak to him, why is this an administrative and not a political one?


Also, I don&#39;t understand your position? Are you saying it is both unacceptable for RAAn members and Axel to say such things or that it is acceptable for both to say them? Or, is it ok for Axel to say it and not RAAN?

I&#39;m not saying there&#39;s any comparison between Axel&#39;s statement&#39;s and RAAN&#39;s statements (and acts of vandalism). If you&#39;re suggesting there is, I wholly reject your comparison. Axel has not called for preemptive attacks on anarchists.

(And before now, you haven&#39;t been known for rejection of RAAN&#39;s provocations. Instead, you seemed to be appointing yourself their defense lawyer, falsely claiming they would remove the leaflet in question from their website Real Soon Now.

My point, again: RAAN&#39;s fascist-like escapades are a good example of how there&#39;s a certain element of truth to Axel&#39;s statement. It&#39;d be ridiculous to give an administrative warning for pointing out a real possibility.

Now, Axel&#39;s wrong to suggest this is limited to anarchists. Much of the middle-class left is adrift, and could end up anywhere. But I have to say some anarchists are an especially bad case, with no connection whatsoever to the working class - nor desire for such a connection.

[Severian]

Originally posted by devrimankara+March 08, 2007 07:53 am--> (devrimankara @ March 08, 2007 07:53 am) I find it hard to believe that anybody comparing the two programmes could see the Kronstadt one as the petty bourgeois one. Yes, it (the NEP) was brought in after the Kronstadt uprising, but was actually proposed by Trotsky one year earlier. [/b]
Another argument that was answered long ago, but the answer gets consistently ignored by some people.

The pressure of the petty-bourgeoisie on the workers state is one thing - the concessions by the workers state to that pressure another. The Kronstadters were clearly demanding the Bolsheviks move towards more "free trade".

Oddly, you describe these Kronstadter demands as demands on behalf of the poor peasants. Why poor, specially? Trade and the market normally benefit richer people more - and, in fact, the NEP did benefit the kulaks most.


Originally posted by Luis [email protected]
Also, as Severian seems to be hinting, class collaboration, in general, is a different thing from whatever makes organisations undertake the LaRouchite path directly to the ultra-right (instead of to the center-right via center-left).

Right. The process of becoming reformists, then liberals, etc., is far more typical. And more straightforward to understand.

Those who go to the fascist or fascist-like ultraright remain radical and anticapitalist while becoming radically reactionary, open enemies of the working class and social progress.


In this last case, I dare say that the abstract cult of violence (which cannot be found nowhere in Lenin, must I say) that plagues the left is the responsible.

That may be a factor - it&#39;s certainly a negative characteristic - but I think not the main one. The decisive thing about the LaRouchites&#39; thug attacks was that they were aimed at organizations within the workers&#39; movement. The New Alliance Party, which followed a similar path, never went in that heavily for direct violence.

An interesting halfway case was the Workers League (now Socialist Equality Party/World Socialist Website.) They became a group specializing in disruption operations against strikes and workers&#39; organizations, without becoming ultraright or working with ultrarightists. Neither nationalism or a special love for violence seems to have been involved, but a tremendous sectarianism definitely was. (They share an origin and many features with the Spartacist League.)

Through the sixties and seventies, they basically rejected all the main forms the real class struggle was taking, from Black nationalism to the anti-Vietnam war movement. Often in the name of a super-proletarian stance, like the Sparts. That was true of the LaRouchites "National Caucus of Labor Committees", also, now that I think about it.


Luis
It comes down to two different orders of problems:

1. The soviets no longer being representative and powerful, while the Party was rising to a preeminent position;

2. The degradation of the relationships between agriculture and industry (the requistions mentioned by the sailors).

Then, of course, we should see if the proposals raised by the Kronstadt sailors (free elections with electoral campaign for the soviets, restoration of property rights for the peasants) properly addressed those issues. And finally, discuss whether going to mutiny during a civil war against reaction was a good idea, regardless of how justifiable their grievances were.

Yes, that&#39;s what I was getting at with the questions: who could have done better than the Bolsheviks, and with what course of action?

People often post the Kronstadt list of demands, but they seem to be doing so mostly as an argument for their revolutionary nature. (Not a terribly strong one - rhetoric isn&#39;t decisive.)

Now, if anyone wants to claim those demands- or something else - were the correct program or course of action for the Russian revolution, we could examine that.

But most people who actually try to say what the Bosheviks shoulda done end up saying something ridiculous like they shouldn&#39;t continued WWI instead of signing the Brest-Litovsk peace.

BTW, something similar seems to happen with those few people who try to suggest what differently Cuban communists should be doing in their difficult situation.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 11:07 am
Several years ago a comrade actually showed me posts from a Fascist board, proving that there were indeed Anarchists collaborating with Fascists.
Well, you might consider that some things are more common on the internet than in reality. And of course there are semi-fascist types using other "leftist" ideological labels.

[Axel1917]

Originally posted by Severian+March 09, 2007 02:49 am--> (Severian &#064; March 09, 2007 02:49 am)
[email protected] 08, 2007 11:07 am
Several years ago a comrade actually showed me posts from a Fascist board, proving that there were indeed Anarchists collaborating with Fascists.
Well, you might consider that some things are more common on the internet than in reality. And of course there are semi-fascist types using other "leftist" ideological labels. [/b]
That is true. I am sure that the more honest anarchist types and the like don&#39;t spend loads of time on the internet and the like (I myself don&#39;t have a whole lot of time to get on the internet myself.). Although it will show that some drift such ways. I guess that a good deal of such types are more concerned about doing things in cyberspace instead of in real life.


Now, Axel&#39;s wrong to suggest this is limited to anarchists. Much of the middle-class left is adrift, and could end up anywhere. But I have to say some anarchists are an especially bad case, with no connection whatsoever to the working class - nor desire for such a connection.

I never said that it was confined to anarchists, but was responding to anarchists that were exhibiting reactionary behavior, in addition to basing myself on historical examples to back it up. I have seen various people sliding toward various shades to the right. Some socialists (some of them seen in person and not online) I have seen are nothing more than closet democrats, other socialists drifting to neconservative ideology, etc.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by devrimankara+March 08, 2007 01:53 pm--> (devrimankara @ March 08, 2007 01:53 pm) As I wrote earlier:


Again it doesn&#39;t look that petty bourgeois to me. Admittedly points 11, and 15 do offer concessions to the poor peasantry, and can not be described in any way as Socialist measures. However, it does stress without using hired labor, and by personal labor. If we compare this to the NEP:


wiki

promulgated by decree on March 21, 1921, "On the Replacement of Foodstuff and Natural Resource Assessment by a Natural Tax." In essence, the decree required the khulacks, middle-class farmers, to give the government a specified amount of any surplus agricultural, raw product, and fodder, and allowed them to keep the remaining surplus to use as capital or to trade for industrial goods. Further decrees refined the policy and expanded it to include some industries.

I find it hard to believe that anybody comparing the two programmes could see the Kronstadt one as the petty bourgeois one. Yes, it (the NEP) was brought in after the Kronstadt uprising, but was actually proposed by Trotsky one year earlier. [/b]
You see, criticism of the Bolsheviks&#39; actions in 1917-21 can come from many different sides, and I am sure that some of it is decidedly reasonable and well based on proletarian revolutionary tradition.

But when incompatible critiques are thrown together under a general anti-Bolshevik banner, we should suspect that what is being criticised is not the Bolsheviks&#39; mistakes, but rather their willingness to run the risk of committing mistakes.

The Mensheviks believed that material conditions in Russia were not ready for a socialist revolution. Some SRs believed that material conditions were irrelevant for the issue of a socialist revolution. It is possible to debate either in a rational way. But some anti-bolsheviks seem to have come to the notion that the Bolsheviks are guilty of both starting an impossible Revolution and being unwilling to deliver the (previously stated as impossible) result.

The same comes to mind on the idealisation of Kronstadt sailors. The Bolsheviks were probably wrong in not taking the measures encompassed in the NEP earlier, and the sailors were perhaps right in demanding them (a different issue being if a military mutiny was the proper way to deliver the demand). On the other hand, it is also possible that such measures were tantamount to abandoning a socialist line. What is not possible is both those things being true: the demand of greater freedom for peasant/artisan private property being a deeply revolutionary measure while being proposed by the sailors, and an ugly betrayal of the revolution when implemented by the Bolsheviks; reversely, the brutal suppression of peasant/artisan petty property being a crime while committed by the Bolsheviks in the context of "War Communism", and a revolutionary demand against the "bourgeois" NEP.

We have to chose sides, here; we cannot conflate disparate things. The sailors&#39; demands were "to the right" of the Bolshevik policies during the Civil War. Either the Bolsheviks defended a correct line against the "centrist" sailors, or the Bolsheviks made ultra-left mistakes that should be corrected.

The conflation of incompatible criticisms just because all of them happen to be ANTI-bolsheviks seems to point to theorical opportunism, and, in the context of Russia in 1921, tends to invite the notion that the Bolsheviks are being criticised for doing anything because that - daring to do anything - was the real problem.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 02:47 am
Right. The process of becoming reformists, then liberals, etc., is far more typical. And more straightforward to understand.
People make a living of that, so there is a clear material basis for reformism. And there is Lenin&#39;s writing on that, that became pretty classical.

While, of course, it is much more difficult to understand how people would make a living out from the LaRouchite path, and its material basis seems much more misterious. So we don&#39;t get classical texts about it...


That may be a factor - it&#39;s certainly a negative characteristic - but I think not the main one.

In fact, I must agree that that seems excessively abstract. Even if such cult of violence could be proved as the definite cause of left-to-right drifts, it would be necessary to explain where from does this cult comes.


Often in the name of a super-proletarian stance, like the Sparts. That was true of the LaRouchites "National Caucus of Labor Committees", also, now that I think about it.

It seems to be a very frequent trait, if not always present. Like political version of Colombus&#39; idea of reaching the East by travelling to West. But more probably, at least from some moment on, the ultra-left rethorics work more as a disguise to hide what is really going on, than as a real part of the phenomenon.


BTW, something similar seems to happen with those few people who try to suggest what differently Cuban communists should be doing in their difficult situation.

Yes, and the doublethought seems similar too: there can be no Socialist revolution in Cuba because the material conditions were not given; so Castro&#39;s movement must be bourgeois, so - to use the vocabulary some people believe gives them a radical charm - "fuck" Cuba, Castro, and the Cuban people.

Luís Henrique

[Devrim]

Originally posted by g.ram+--> (g.ram)It is indeed a tragedy even according to Lenin and Trotsky. the later had proposed to abandon war communism even before it and the former along with central commitee decided to abandon after that incident. New Economic Policy is the outcome of this particular event. [/b]

I don&#39;t believe that the NEP, the New Exploitation of the Proletariat as it was called, was a result of Kronsdadt. Trotsky was calling for the NEP a year before it came into effect.


Originally posted by g.ram+--> (g.ram)But that is used as a evidence that Lenin was wrong in Imperialism and that He was a "State Capitalist". Yet another hypocrisy of anarchists and ultra lefts. It is you waho are the ones focused on Individuals rather than events.[/b]

As for your allegations of hypocrisy. I am not really sure what you mean by it. The issues about state capitalism, and imperialism are not really connected with Kronstadt.

The Communist Left warned against the dangers as early as April 1918:
Originally posted by Kommunist 20/4/1918
"We stand for the construction of the proletarian society by the class creativity of the workers themselves, not by the ukases of the captains of industry. . . if the proletariat itself does not know how to create the necessary prerequisites for the socialist organisation of labour no one can do this for it and no one can compel it to do this. The stick, if raised against the workers, will find itself in the hands of a social force which is either under the influence of another social class or is in the hands of the soviet power; but the soviet power will then be forced to seek support against the proletariat from another class (e.g. the peasantry) and by this it will destroy itself as the dictatorship of the proletariat. Socialism and socialist organisation will be set up by the proletariat itself, or they will not be set up at all - something else will be set up - state capitalism".

Lenin on the other hand didn&#39;t see a danger in State capitalism. Instead, he thought that it was a positive development:


Originally posted by Lenin 5/5/1918
If we introduced state capitalism in approximately 6 months&#39; time we would achieve a great success and a sure guarantee that within a year socialism will have gained a permanently firm hold and will have become invincible in our country...Economically, state capitalism is immeasurably superior to the present system of economy ...the soviet power has nothing terrible to fear from it, for the soviet State is a state in which the power of the workers and the poor is assured.

I think that it is very clear from this quote that Lenin enthusiastically supported the development of state capitalism, and didn&#39;t see the dangers that it held.

On the question of Lenin&#39;s view on imperialism, our position is very clear. Support for national liberation movements was a disaster for the revolution.

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=58568&hl=

I don&#39;t see where the allegations of hypocrisy come from.


Originally posted by Severian

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 07:53 am
I find it hard to believe that anybody comparing the two programmes could see the Kronstadt one as the petty bourgeois one. Yes, it (the NEP) was brought in after the Kronstadt uprising, but was actually proposed by Trotsky one year earlier.
Another argument that was answered long ago, but the answer gets consistently ignored by some people.

The pressure of the petty-bourgeoisie on the workers state is one thing - the concessions by the workers state to that pressure another. The Kronstadters were clearly demanding the Bolsheviks move towards more "free trade".


Firstly, I just love the pseudo school master speaking with authority style of &#39;Another argument that was answered long ago&#39;.

The question here as before is what was the class nature of the Soviet state in 1921? Were the working class still in power?

The Bolsheviks were moving towards free trade. Trotsky had been arguing for the NEP for a year before Kronstadt. Did the NEP represent the interests of the working class.


Originally posted by wiki (my emphasis)
promulgated by decree on March 21, 1921, "On the Replacement of Foodstuff and Natural Resource Assessment by a Natural Tax." In essence, the decree required the khulacks, middle-class farmers, to give the government a specified amount of any surplus agricultural, raw product, and fodder, and allowed them to keep the remaining surplus to use as capital or to trade for industrial goods. Further decrees refined the policy and expanded it to include some industries.

This is not the programme of the working class.


Originally posted by Severian
Oddly, you describe these Kronstadter demands as demands on behalf of the poor peasants. Why poor, specially? Trade and the market normally benefit richer people more - and, in fact, the NEP did benefit the kulaks most.


You are right. The NEP benefited the Kulaks. Let&#39;s just look at the relevant points of the Kronsdadt programme again:


Originally posted by Kronstadt Izvestiia #1(my emphasis)
11. To give the peasants full control over their own land, to do as they wish, and also to keep cattle, which must be maintained and managed by their own strength, that is, without using hired labor.
15. To allow free handicraft manufacture by personal labor.

Now, I think that it was generally recognised that the situation in Russia demanded that some economic concessions be made towards the peasantry. Let&#39;s be very clear about this. This were not progressive measures. They were anti-socialist measures, which were necessary in the circumstances.

The Kronstadt programme made concessions to the poor peasantry. The NEP made concessions to the Kulaks, and the capitalists. Which is the programme of the working class?


Originally posted by Luís Henrique
The same comes to mind on the idealisation of Kronstadt sailors. The Bolsheviks were probably wrong in not taking the measures encompassed in the NEP earlier, and the sailors were perhaps right in demanding them (a different issue being if a military mutiny was the proper way to deliver the demand). On the other hand, it is also possible that such measures were tantamount to abandoning a socialist line. What is not possible is both those things being true: the demand of greater freedom for peasant/artisan private property being a deeply revolutionary measure while being proposed by the sailors, and an ugly betrayal of the revolution when implemented by the Bolsheviks; reversely, the brutal suppression of peasant/artisan petty property being a crime while committed by the Bolsheviks in the context of "War Communism", and a revolutionary demand against the "bourgeois" NEP.

As I have mentioned, the NEP is not a reaction to Kronstadt. Trotsky was arguing for it a year earlier. The demands of the Kronstadt soviet were aimed at making necessary concessions to the poor peasants. It was not deeply revolutionary. It was a backwards step. The NEP though is another matter entirely. It is a distinctly anti-working class programme.


Luís [email protected]
We have to chose sides, here; we cannot conflate disparate things. The sailors&#39; demands were "to the right" of the Bolshevik policies during the Civil War. Either the Bolsheviks defended a correct line against the "centrist" sailors, or the Bolsheviks made ultra-left mistakes that should be corrected.

I don&#39;t believe that the Sailors demands were to the right of the NEP though. ON the contary they were not as &#39;far to the right&#39; as the RCP(B).


Luís Henrique
The conflation of incompatible criticisms just because all of them happen to be ANTI-bolsheviks seems to point to theorical opportunism, and, in the context of Russia in 1921, tends to invite the notion that the Bolsheviks are being criticised for doing anything because that - daring to do anything - was the real problem.

The Bolsheviks dared. It was the first workers revolution in history. It encountered problems that hadn&#39;t been imagined before. The point is not to do as anarchists do and &#39;demonise&#39; Lenin and the Bolsheviks, but to draw a balance sheet. At some point, I am sure we both agree, capitalism was restored in Russia, and the RCP(B) ended up defending capital. It is a valid question to ask how this happened.

Devrim

[Vargha Poralli]

I don&#39;t believe that the NEP, the New Exploitation of the Proletariat as it was called, was a result of Kronsdadt.

Ok no problem. Don&#39;t believe it. That is your opinion. But to add it is not only Kronstadt rebellion but also Tambov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_rebellion)rebellion which is also because of the resentment towards War Communism

And Wiki which you often quote from emphasising your points says
Although Red Army units suppressed the uprising, the general dissatisfaction with the state of affairs could not have been more forcefully expressed. Against this background of discontent, Lenin, who also concluded that world revolution was not imminent, proceeded in the spring of 1921 to replace the War Communism economic policy with his New Economic Policy.

Now the emphasis are mine.


Trotsky was calling for the NEP a year before it came into effect.

Now Trotsky too is a State Capitalist. A discussion about Brest Litovsk (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57912&hl=) which is the biggest mistake committed by Lenin according to your friend. As a main negotiator Trotsky was too reluctant to sign the treaty and your beloved friend hailed him as a true revolutionary. Indeed it was greatest blunder of Trotsky initially refusing to sign the agreement initially which led Germans to impose more harsh terms later. There your friend Leo hailed Trotsky that he really wanted to spread the revolution but Lenin did not wanted to as he was a "State Capitalist" from that time itself.


Lenin on the other hand didn&#39;t see a danger in State capitalism. Instead, he thought that it was a positive development:

Now I perfectly understand why Lenin branded your types as a infantile disorder. Lenin was a man of his material conditions. So was NEP a product of the material conditions of that time. Lenin also said about NEP that the Bolsheviks are taking one step backward to take two step forward.So Lenin knew a lot about what the party was doing in his time than you knew it today.

That being said really how could define Stalin as State Capitalist. He abandoned NEP and brought everything under centralised control but still Stalin too was a very "Consciuos Capitalist" according to your friend.



On the question of Lenin&#39;s view on imperialism, our position is very clear. Support for national liberation movements was a disaster for the revolution.

That is where another mistake of yours take place. Nationality question was answered by Lenin in that particular way to suit to multi national Russian empire, which helped Bolsheviks to gain support not only from Russian workers but also from Belarusians,Ukrainians,Tatars etc. It was a big boost to Bolsheviks during revolution and civil war in Russia.

***************************

I have attempted to answers all your points that have been made to others. The main similarity with Anarchists and Ultra left types like you is that you focus on Individuals rather than Events.

[Amusing Scrotum]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique
We have to chose sides, here; we cannot conflate disparate things.

I understand the point you&#39;re making in your post; but, still, the conclusion seems far too black and white for me.

That is, surely there&#39;s another option than either simply supporting the proposed measures of the Bolsheviks&#39;, or the proposed measures of the sailors? That option being support for the measures proposed by the sailors that mirrored/expanded upon the measures being proposed by groups like the Worker&#39;s Group and the Worker&#39;s Opposition.

If we do that, then we can reject the concessions to the peasantry proposed by the sailors -- the ones you label as being "to the right" of Bolshevik policy.

Basically, I don&#39;t think the choice is simply between a revolutionary state led by the Bolsheviks&#39;, or a revolutionary state led by the Kronstadt sailors. Rather, I think, or perhaps would like to think, that there was a possibility of a revolutionary state where political power was based in the workplace, and not a particular group.

[PRC-UTE]

Originally posted by The Anarchist Tension+March 08, 2007 10:26 am--> (The Anarchist Tension @ March 08, 2007 10:26 am)
[email protected] 08, 2007 04:11 am
I honestly would not be surprised to one day see you guys collaborating with Stormfront against Marxists&#33;
I find it totally bizarre that you can make such an assertion when the only non-platformist, militant anti-fascist groups are those started by anarchists.

While most Marxist organisations participate in groups like Unite Against Fascism (a liberal and pacifist anti-fascist group) anarchists and "ultra-leftists" are actually on the streets fighting the causes and participants of fascism.

You simply have no grasp of reality. That&#39;s clearly a fact. [/b]
Ever hear of AFA? They were pretty militant.

[Leo]

A discussion about Brest Litovsk which is the biggest mistake committed by Lenin according to your friend.

Pure bullshit. I didn&#39;t say it was the biggest mistake committed by Lenin, the biggest mistake would be siding with the bourgeoisie against the working class. I said that it was a mistake.

Actually, it was you who said that it was the biggest mistake committed by Lenin:


Originally posted by g.ram
That was the biggest mistake made by Lenin. Even Though six months is a very long gap given the material conditions of Russia at that time.Part of the mistake is also with the German proletariat which delayed the revolution. Ironically Trotsky&#39;s stand in this issue was one among the other things used by the troika to marginalize him during Lenin&#39;s illness.

I think that this comment makes your whole arguement fucking hilarious.


but Lenin did not wanted to as he was a "State Capitalist" from that time itself.

Now I am sure that you didn&#39;t actually read the thread so if you can read it, here&#39;s what I said:


I absolutely don&#39;t say that Lenin&#39;s decision was not sensible and understandable, nor do I doubt his sincerity while making the decision. I would actually prefer his take to the take of Bukharin, as Bilan does. But the point of my thread was to show that there was another way, pursued by Trotsky on this case. I&#39;m not really fond of Trotsky, but I think he was right on this case. Bukharin&#39;s way would have clearly backfired, not only externally but also internally. Lenin&#39;s way ended up leaving the German proletariat all alone. Perhaps Trotsky&#39;s way could have opened a door for succesful revolutions in Europe...


As a main negotiator Trotsky was too reluctant to sign the treaty and your beloved friend hailed him as a true revolutionary. Indeed it was greatest blunder of Trotsky initially refusing to sign the agreement initially which led Germans to impose more harsh terms later. There your friend Leo hailed Trotsky that he really wanted to spread the revolution but Lenin did not wanted to as he was a "State Capitalist" from that time itself.

I didn&#39;t hail him or anything, I only said that if he could have managed to pursue his policy, the situation probably would have resulted in a better way - I said that it was tactically a better policy for the spread of the proletarian revolution.

Oh, and the rest of the thread evolved around the question of whether Russia would have survived a German invasion or not.


That being said really how could define Stalin as State Capitalist. He abandoned NEP and brought everything under centralised control but still Stalin too was a very "Consciuos Capitalist" according to your friend.

Uh, because him abandoning NEP is not the reason we label Stalin as a conscious state capitalist? I mean, how more obvious can that be?

[Vargha Poralli]

Actually, it was you who said that it was the biggest mistake committed by Lenin:

That was a mistake on my part I said that without any prior knowledge on that subject but later admitted it in the same thread in this post (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57912&view=findpost&p=1292197236) and in this post. (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57912&view=findpost&p=1292198006)



Uh, because him abandoning NEP is not the reason we label Stalin as a conscious state capitalist? I mean, how more obvious can that be?

devrim made out that Lenin "did not see the dangers of state capitalism " which is present in the NEP itself and the seed for State capitalist regime lies in the rebellion of Kronstadt. So I made it. I don&#39;t believe in State Capitalism theory itself but which is mainly because it is interpreted differently and did not answer many peculiarities of USSR during all the time of its existence.

If NEP makes Lenin and Trotsky a state capitalist how could you call Stalin the same when he abandoned it in favour of centralisation ?

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 11:07 am
Several years ago a comrade actually showed me posts from a Fascist board, proving that there were indeed Anarchists collaborating with Fascists.
Maybe "National Anarchists," but they&#39;re not anarchists at all. No anarchist collaborates with fascists.



And it is still no surprise to this very day that you types continue to side with the bourgeoisie at every decisive phase in the class struggle&#33;

Yeah... like?


The RAAN&#39;s individual terrorism is (as well as some other anarcho and ultra-left types around here&#33;) also is an indication of the possiblity of your kind slipping toward the ultra-right. Such terrorism and vehement anti-Marxism clearly indicates that in the decisive hour, such people can only play the same role as policemen and fascists in regard to the revolution.

RAAN is hardly indicative of all anarchist work and organizing, and they aren&#39;t anti-Marxist.


Are you gonig to take an honest approach, or are you just going to sit around and continue to do the propaganda of the bourgeoisie for them?&#33; You are pretty quiet about the crimes of the whiteguards, but whenever the Bolsheviks justly killed a counterrevolutionary, you cry foul along with the bourgeois chorus.

Why would they talk about the whites? They oppose them and many anarchists died fighting them. This is a leftist board, so we&#39;re talking about the left, idiot.


As for your "actual fighting," vandalism, individual fighting with the police, burning random shops, etc. happen to be completely counterproductive. It does not take much thinking to figure out why anarchists have virtually no authority amongst advanced workres. Most of their authority is in fact with disgruntled teenagers, not workers.

What, and Marxist college students with their heads buried so deep in theory they can&#39;t even operate in the real world are winning popularity contests among the workers? (Stereotypes are stupid, don&#39;t you think?)

[catch]

it&#39;s kind of odd that one side makes the Kronstadt sailors into heroic martyrs, while glossing over the fact that they slaughtered 10000 red army soldiers.

Actually the bolsheviks had a hard time getting Red Army soldiers to fight them, and had to get a non-communist Turkish general to persuade Tartar troops to fight them.



Originally posted by Ivar Spector
International Journal of Middle East [email protected] Vol. 3, No. 4. (Oct., 1972), pp. 491-493.


Because of their popularity, the government was apprehensive about depending
upon regular Soviet troops to suppress the uprising. Its predicament has been
substantiated, for the first time, by Soviet Marshal Ivan S. Konev in his
&#39; Reminiscences&#39;,z where he admits that some Soviet trainees and artillerymen
refused outright to fire on their rebel comrades.
In this crisis the Soviet government received crucial support from an unexpected
foreign source through the personal intervention of an outstanding noncommunist,
General Ali Fuat Cebesoy (1882-1968), first ambassador of the
Turkish Republic to Soviet Russia. General Cebesoy, who received his official
appointment as ambassador on 21 November 1920, arrived in Moscow on
27 February 1921, on the very eve of the Kronstadt Revolt. He remained at this
post until the spring of 1922. General Cebesoy was sent to Moscow by Mustafa
Kemal Atatiirk to conclude the Turkish-Soviet &#39;Treaty of Friendship and
Fraternity&#39;, signed on 16 March 1921
[...]
In the suppression of the Kronstadt Revolt, time was of the essence. After
Cebesoy&#39;s arrival in Moscow, Joseph Stalin, then Commissar of Nationalities,
with Lenin&#39;s approval urged the Turkish Ambassador to use his influence as
a Turkish military hero and a Muslim to persuade the Tatar divisions in Russia,
one in Moscow and one in Kazan, to participate in the suppression of this
dangerous uprising. During the Civil War in Russia, 1918-1920, these Tatar
divisions, organized in separate units because of the requirements of Muslim
dietary laws and special religious observances, had remained neutral, refusing to
fight for either side.

[...]
Thus, with the participation of Tatar troops, who had no
scruples about fighting Russian sailors, Leon Trotsky, War Commissar, with
M. N. Tukhachevsky in command of the operation,= succeeded in storming the
Kronstadt fortress and in suppressing the revolt.

[catch]

So you&#39;d have to show what the Bolsheviks had done previously that made it justifiable to try to overthrow them. And don&#39;t stop with a purely negative rejection - give us some reasons to think that some other force could do better than the Bolsheviks in that situation. Tell us what better course of action could have been taken in that situation.

Then you&#39;d have to look at the way they used the unions and the Vesenka to crush the factory committees from late 1917/early 1918 - as outlined in Brinton&#39;s the Bolsheviks and Workers control.

Also the way they crushed strikes in Moscow and Petrograd during 1919 - Vladimir Brovkin&#39;s "Workers&#39; Unrest and the Bolsheviks&#39; Response in 1919" covers this in detail.