"Shoot them like partridges"

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Hey guys. I'm a trotskyist and live with someone who was prominent in the anarchist movement in the 70s and 80s, personal friend of Albert Meltzer and Stuart Christie etc. He's read loads more and been around the far-left block more than I have, so he does tend to slap me around in debates, but I'm far from convinced by what he's offered as an analysis of the state etc. anyhow that's by the by.

Recently he said to me that Trotsky had ordered that participants in the Kronstadt rebellion be 'shot like partridges'; the order was something like "if you do not give in we will shoot you like partridges" and was I prepared to defend such a remark which frankly I'm not. Later he said it might have been Zinoviev but Trotsky was in agreement and in any case it showed the inherent disdain for the working class and human life yada yada of the bolsheviks.

Does anybody know for definite where the origin of this accusation is, and whether or not it's true? I've found a couple of websites discussing it, but mostly there's just uncertainty.

[revolution inaction]

I can find it here in The unknown revolution, 1917-1921 - Volin Part I: Kronstadt (1921)

The same issue of the Izvestia (No. 4) reproduced, for the edification of its readers, the following report broadcast by the Radio Station in Moscow: MOSCOW RADIO

"To the deceived people of Kronstadt.
"Do you see where the rascals have led you? Here is your position. The greedy fangs of former Tsarist generals are already showing themselves behind the Social-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks. All these Petrichenkos and Toukins are manipulated like puppets by the Tsarist general Kozlovsky, Captain Borkser, Kostromitinoff, Chirmanovsky and other proved White guards. They are duping you! They tell you that you are struggling for democracy, but two days have hardly passed and you see that you are not really fighting for democracy but for Tsarist generals. You have permitted a new Wiren4 to put a rope around your necks.
"They lie to you that Petrograd is with you, that Siberia and the Ukraine support you. All these are only cynical lies. The last sailor in Petrograd turned his back on you when he learned that Tsarist generals like Kozlovsky were among you. Siberia and the Ukraine firmly defend the Soviet power. Petrograd, the Red city, sneers at the pitiful pretensions of a handful of Social-Revolutionaries and White guardists.
"You are completely surrounded. In a few more hours you will have to surrender. Kronstadt has neither bread nor fuel. If you persist you will be shot like partridges.Naturally, all these generals -- Kozlovsky and Borkser-all the wretches like Petrichenko and Toukin, will flee at the last moment to the White guardists in Finland. But you others, simple deceived sailors and Red soldiers, where will you go? If they are promising to provide for you in Finland, they are fooling you again. Don't you know that the soldiers of General Wrangel, led away to Constantinople, died like flies of hunger and disease? The same fate awaits you if you don't come to your senses immediately.



...



A name continually recurs in all these documents -- that of a certain General Kozlovsky, the pretended leader and master of the movement. There was, in fact, at Kronstadt a Tsarist ex-General of the name of Kozlovsky. It was Trotsky, the great restorer of ex-generals of the Tsar as military specialists, who put him there as an artillery expert. While this person was in the employ of the Bolsheviks, they closed their eyes to his past. But when Kronstadt revolted, they took advantage of the presence of their "specialist" to create a scapegoat.
In fact, Kozlovsky did not play any part in the events at Kronstadt, nor did his "aides," who were mentioned by the Bolsheviks-Borkser, Kostromitinoff and Chirmanovsky, one of whom was a simple draughtsman. But the Bolsheviks exploited their names skilfully to denounce the sailors as enemies of the Republic and present their movement as counterrevolutionary. Communist agitators were sent into the mills and factories of Petrograd and Moscow to call upon them to take a stand against Kronstadt, "that nest of the White conspiracy, directed by General Kozlovsky," and "to associate themselves with the support and defense of the Workers' and Peasants' Government against the White guard rebellion at Kronstadt."

and here Kronstadt 1921: An analysis of Bolshevik propaganda - Emma Goldman

The issue of negotiations and a peaceful resolution to the crisis is a delicate one to the Bolsheviks, since it contrasts most clearly the belligerence of the Bolsheviks and the peaceful nature of the revolt. After the Anchor Square debacle, the Bolsheviks made clear their intention to avoid negotiations by arresting over 200 delegates from Kronstadt who had been sent to Petrograd and neighboring areas to explain the position of the mutineers. The next step was the issue of an ultimatum on 5 March by Trotsky, who, in words that "could have been issued by a nineteenth-century provincial governor to the rebellious peasants... warned that the rebels would 'be shot like partridges' if they did not give themselves up in twenty-four hours" (Figes 762). Visiting American anarchists offered to serve as mediators in the crisis. They were rebuffed by the Bolshevik leadership and sent on a tour of Russia by train; Russians who offered to mediate were thrown into jail (Serge 128). A parley after the first day of the attack was nothing more than a trap: when members of Kronstadt's Provisional Revolutionary Committee came out to negotiate, they were taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks (Avrich 155). No real attempt was made by the Bolsheviks to resolve the crisis peacefully, although "the chances were good that the insurgents would have responded to [such an] approach" (Avrich 136).

[bailey_187]

4 years of civil war, also preceded by 3 years of one of the worst wars in history, would probably have made that attitude towards human life.

[Kléber]

The Bolsheviks should have negotiated. Most of the mutineers' demands were entirely revolutionary even if the mutiny was a very stupid idea. On the Bolshevik side, Zinoviev and Dzerzhinsky offered cowardly and paranoiac examples of how not to defuse a peacefully resolvable situation. Nevertheless the anarchists are basically right that Lenin and Trotsky were complicit in the bureaucratization of the revolution. They did realize and try to stop it, but a couple years too late.

For sailors based in Petrograd the war was effectively over and the austerity became unjustifiable, but Trotsky was still commanding the entire war effort, finishing off pockets of White forces while the Japanese imperialist army continued to occupy parts of Siberia. From his perspective, any sign of weakness or slowdown in war production might encourage a new imperialist offensive before the domestic counter-revolutionaries had been wiped out and the base of workers' power secured. Trotsky was also reliant on government dispatches for information which clouded his understanding of real social conditions as the revolutionary government became alienated from the masses. He did not seem to think that workers' democracy was a priority until after the victory of the revolution, which was a giant error because bureaucratization accompanied militarization during the war. Moreover, if the anarchists and Left SR's had stayed in the Soviet government they would have been among the best defenders of workers' power against Stalinism.

If Trotsky was the author of that statement, then he was in the wrong. He was misinformed about the nature of the mutiny, but in his position he had neither the time nor the means to investigate it then. So while Trotsky was not personally responsible, he was mistaken for trying to defend the repression of the mutiny afterward. In hindsight we can say that the mutiny was foolish and premature, while Trotsky foolishly defended the criminal shooting of good communists. I think the real lesson is not that one group are traitors, it's that Marxists and anarchists turn on each other, the revolution is fucked.

[crashcourse]

On Trotsky you might also read Daniel Cohn-Bendit's book _Obsolete Communism: A Left Wing Alternative_. If you can find it, I recommend reading that along side Michael Perelman's book _The Invention of Capitalism_, all about English economists during the beginnings of capitalism. There are some eerie parallels between some of Trotsky's remarks and remarks by economists like J.B. Say.

[erupt]

I'm no Trotskyist; I'm deffinetly no Stalinist. But, those are some rather nice words compared to others I've read/heard during times of civil unrest, be it peaceful protesting or revolution.

[Devrim]

The Bolsheviks should have negotiated. Most of the mutineers' demands were entirely revolutionary even if the mutiny was a very stupid idea.
...
In hindsight we can say that the mutiny was foolish and premature, while Trotsky foolishly defended the criminal shooting of good communists. I think the real lesson is not that one group are traitors, it's that Marxists and anarchists turn on each other, the revolution is fucked.

Except there wasn't a mutiny until the Bolsheviks declared one. All the workers and sailors of Kronstadt did was to re-elect a new soviet, and to put forward their programme, and asked for it to be distributed. The Bolsheviks made the mutiny.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Moreover, if the anarchists and Left SR's had stayed in the Soviet government they would have been among the best defenders of workers' power against Stalinism.

The Soviet government was a tool of Stalinism.

Devrim

[devoration1]

Being a Trotskyist doesn't mean you have to defend all of the beliefs, actions and words propogated through the lifetime of one Leon Trotsky.

[Wanted Man]

Being a Trotskyist doesn't mean you have to defend all of the beliefs, actions and words propogated through the lifetime of one Leon Trotsky.

But most Trotskyist groups do just that. On most of their websites, it's only a matter of minutes to find some kind of "official position" on Kronstadt. Look a bit further and you'll find some stuff about how anarchism is always utterly wrong, because just look at these decontextualised Bakunin and Proudhon quotes.

[Devrim]

But most Trotskyist groups do just that. On most of their websites, it's only a matter of minutes to find some kind of "official position" on Kronstadt. Look a bit further and you'll find some stuff about how anarchism is always utterly wrong, because just look at these decontextualised Bakunin and Proudhon quotes.

To be honest I am surprised that get away with such sloppiness. I mean it is not like modern anarchism has anything at all to do with Bakuninism.

Devrim

[BurnTheOliveTree]

cheers for the contributions guys. I searched for Izvestia 4 after reading revolution inaction's reference, and found it here.

http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr...zvestia/04.htm

The quote does appear to be accurate - they have it translated as "if you are stubborn you will be shot down like grouse". disturbing.

[Anarchist Skinhead]

yeah, old good Leo... *goes into the room to find his ice pick*