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Title: The Kronstadt Rebellion Author: Alexander Berkman Date: 1922 Language: en Topics: history, Russian Revolution Source: Retrieved on March 14th, 2009 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bright/berkman/kronstadt/berkkron.html][dwardmac.pitzer.edu]]. Proofread online source [[http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=1230, retrieved on November 18, 2020.
It was early in 1921. Long years of war, revolution, and civil struggle
had bled Russia to exhaustion and brought her people to the brink of
despair. But at last civil war was at an end: the numerous fronts were
liquidated, and Wrangel — the last hope of Entente intervention and
Russian counter-revolution — was defeated and his military activities
within Russia terminated. The people now confidently looked forward to
the mitigation of the severe Bolshevik régime. It was expected that with
the end of civil war the Communists would lighten the burdens, abolish
war-time restrictions, introduce some fundamental liberties, and begin
the organisation of a more normal life. Though far from being popular
the Bolshevik Government had the support of the workers in its oft
announced plan of taking up the economic reconstruction of the country
as soon as military operations should cease. The people were eager to
coöperate, to put their initiative and creative efforts to the
reconstruction of the ruined land.
Most unfortunately, these expectations were doomed to disappointment.
The Communist State showed no intention of loosening the yoke. The same
policies continued, with labor militarisation still further enslaving
the people, embittering them with added oppression and tyranny, and in
consequence paralising every possibility of industrial revival. The last
hope of the proletariat was perishing: the conviction grew that the
Communist Party was more interested in retaining political power than in
saving the Revolution.
The most revolutionary elements of Russia, the workers of Petrograd,
were the first to speak out. They charged that, aside from other causes,
Bolshevik centralisation, bureaucracy, and autocratic attitude toward
the peasants and workers were directly responsible for much of the
misery and suffering of the people. Many factories and mills of
Petrograd had been closed, and the workers were literally starving. They
called meetings to consider the situation. The meetings were suppressed
by the Government. The Petrograd proletariat, who had borne the brunt of
the revolutionary struggles and whose great sacrifices and heroism alone
had saved the city from Yudenitch, resented the action of the
Government. Feeling against the methods employed by the Bolsheviki
continued to grow. More meetings were called, with the same result. The
Communists would make no concessions to the proletariat, while at the
same time they were offering to compromise with the capitalists of
Europe and America. The workers were indignant — they became aroused. To
compel the Government to consider their demands, strikes were called in
the Patronny munition works, the Trubotchny and Baltiyski mills, and in
the Laferm factory. Instead of talking matters over with the
dissatisfied workers, the “Workers’ and Peasants’ Government” created a
war-time Komitet Oborony (Committee of Defense) with Zinoviev, the most
hated man in Petrograd, as Chairman. The avowed purpose of that
Committee was to suppress the strike movement.
It was on February 24 that the strikes were declared. The same day the
Bolsheviki sent the kursanti, the Communist students of the military
academy (training officers for the Army and Navy), to disperse the
workers who had gathered on Vassilevsky Ostrov, the labor district of
Petrograd. The next day, February 25, the indignant strikers of
Vassilevsky Ostrov visited the Admiralty shops and the Galernaya docks,
and induced the workers there to join their protest against the
autocratic attitude of the Government. The attempted street
demonstration of the strikers was dispersed by armed soldiery.
On February 26 the Petrograd Soviet held a session at which the
prominent Communist Lashevitch, member of the Committee of Defense and
of the Revolutionary Military Soviet of the Republic, denounced the
strike movement in sharpest terms. He charged the workers of the
Trubotchny factory with inciting dissatisfaction, accused them of being
“self-seeking labor skinners (shkurniki) and counterrevolutionists”, and
proposed that the Trubotchny factory be closed. The Executive Committee
of the Petrograd Soviet (Zinoviev, Chairman) accepted the suggestion.
The Trubotchny strikers were locked out and thus automatically deprived
of their rations
These methods of the Bolshevik Government served still further to
embitter and antagonise the workers.
Strikers’ proclamations now began to appear on the streets of Petrograd.
Some of them assumed a distinctly political character, the most
significant of them, posted on the walls of the city February 27,
reading:
A complete change is necessary in the policies of the government. First
of all, the workers and peasants need freedom. They don’t want to live
by the decrees of the Bolshevik: they want to control their own
destinies.
Comrades, preserve a revolutionary order! Determinedly and in an
organized manner demand:
Liberation of all arrested socialist and non-partisan workingmen;
Abolition of martial law; freedom of speech, press and assembly for all
who labor;
Free election of shop and factory committees (zahvkomi), of labor union
and soviet representatives.
Call meetings, pass resolutions, send your delegates to the authorities
and work for the realisation of your demands.
The government replied to the demands of the strikers by making numerous
arrests and suppressing several labor organizations. The action resulted
in popular temper growing more anti-Bolshevik; reactionary slogans began
to be heard. Thus on February 28 there appeared a proclamation of the
“Socialist Workers of the Nevsky District”, which concluded with a call
for the Constituent Assembly:
We know who is afraid of the Constituent Assembly. It is they who will
no longer be able to rob the people. Instead they will have to answer
before the representatives of the people for their deceit, their
robberies, and their crimes.
Down with the hated Communists!
Down with the Soviet Government!
Long live the Constituent Assembly!
Meanwhile the Bolsheviki concentrated in Petrograd large military forces
from the provinces and also ordered to the city its most trusted
Communist regiments from the front. Petrograd was put under
“extraordinary martial law”. The strikers were overawed, and the labor
unrest crushed with an iron hand.
The Kronstadt sailors were much disturbed by what happened in Petrograd.
They did not look with friendly eyes upon the Government’s drastic
treatment of the strikers. They knew what the revolutionary proletariat
of the capital had had to bear since the first phase of the revolution,
how heroically they had fought against Yudenitch, and how patiently they
were suffering privation and misery. But Kronstadt was far from favoring
the Constituent Assembly or the demand for free trade which made itself
heard in Petrograd. The sailors were thoroughly revolutionary in spirit
and action. They were the staunchest supporters of the Soviet system,
but they were opposed to the dictatorship of any political party.
The sympathetic movement with the Petrograd strikers first began among
the sailors of the warships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol — the ships
that in 1917 had been the main support of the Bolsheviki. The movement
spread to the whole fleet of Kronstadt, then to the Red Army regiment
stationed there. On February 28^(th) the men of Petropavlovsk passed a
irresolution which was also concurred in by the sailors of Sevastopol.
The resolution demanded, among other things, free reëlection to the
Kronstadt Soviet, as the tenure of office of the latter was about to
expire. At the same time a committee of sailors was sent to Petrograd to
learn the situation there.
On March 1 a public meeting was held on the Yakorny Square in Kronstadt,
which was officially called by the crews of the First and Second
Squadrons of the Baltic fleet. 16,000 sailors, Red Army men, and workers
attended the gathering. It was presided over by the chairman of the
Executive Committee of the Kronstadt Soviet, the Communist Vassiliev.
The President of the Russian Socialist Federated Republic, Kalinin, and
the Commissar of the Baltic Fleet, Kuzmin, were present and addressed
the audience. It may be mentioned, as indicative of the friendly
attitude of the sailors to the Bolshevik Government, that Kalinin was
met on his arrival in Kronstadt with military honors, music, and
banners.
At this meeting the Sailors’ Committee that had been sent to Petrograd
on February 28 made its report. It corroborated the worst fears of
Kronstadt. The audience was outspoken in its indignation at the methods
used by the Communists to crush the modest demands of the Petrograd
workers. The resolution which had been passed by Petropavlovsk on
February 28^(th) was then submitted to the meeting. President Kalinin
and Commissar Kuzmin bitterly attacked the resolution and denounced the
Petrograd strikers as well as the Kronstadt sailors. But the arguments
failed to impress the audience, and the Petropavlovsk resolution was
passed unanimously. The historic document read:
RESOLUTION OF THE GENERAL MEETING
OF THE CREWS OF THE FIRST AND SECOND SQUADRONS
OF THE BALTIC FLEET
HELD MARCH 1, 1921
Having heard the report of the representatives sent by the General
Meeting of the Ship Crews to Petrograd to investigate the situation
there, Resolved:
of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret
ballot, the pre-election campaign to have full freedom of agitation
among the workers and peasants;
Anarchists and left Socialist parties;
organizations;
and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt, and of Petrograd Province, no later
than March 10^(th), 1921;
all workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors imprisoned in connection
with the labor and peasant movements;
concentration camps;
be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive
the financial support of the government for such purposes. Instead there
should be established educational and cultural commissions, locally
elected and financed by the government;
employed in trades is detrimental to health;
Army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in mills and
factories. Should such guards or military detachments be found
necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks, and in
the factories according to the judgment of the workers;
and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the peasants manage
with their own means; that is, without employing hired labor;
military kursanti, to concur in our resolutions;
one’s own efforts.
Resolution passed unanimously by a brigade in meeting, two persons
refraining from voting.
PETRICHENKO
Chairman Brigade Meeting
PEREPELKIN
Secretary
Resolution passed by an overwhelming majority of the Kronstadt garrison.
VASSILIEV
Chairman
Together with comrade Kalinin Vassiliev votes against the resolution.
This resolution, strenuously opposed — as already mentioned — by Kalinin
and Kuzmin, was passed over their protest. After the meeting Kalinin was
permitted to return to Petrograd unmolested.
At the same Brigade Meeting it was also decided to send a Committee to
Petrograd to explain to the workers and the garrison there the demands
of Kronstadt and to request that nonpartisan delegates be sent by the
Petrograd proletariat to Kronstadt to learn the actual state of affairs
and the demands of the sailors. This Committee, which consisted of
thirty members, was arrested by the Bolsheviki in Petrograd. It was the
first blow struck by the Communist government against Kronstadt. The
fate of the Committee remained a mystery.
As the term of office of the members of the Kronstadt Soviet was about
to expire, the Brigade Meeting also decided to call a Conference of
delegates on March 2, to discuss the manner in which the new elections
were to be held. The Conference was to consist of representatives of the
ships, the garrison, the various Soviet institutions, the labor unions
and factories, each organisation to be represented by two delegates.
The Conference of March 2 took place in the House of Education (the
former Kronstadt school of Engineering) and was attended by over 300
delegates, among whom were also Communists. The meeting was opened by
the sailor Petrichenko, and a Presidium (Executive Committee) of five
members of was elected viva voce. The main question before the delegates
was the approaching new elections to the Kronstadt Soviet to be based on
more equitable principles than heretofore. The meeting was also to take
action on the resolutions of March 1, and to consider ways and means of
helping the country out of the desperate condition created by famine and
fuel shortage.
The spirit of the Conference was thoroughly Sovietist: Kronstadt
demanded Soviets free from interference by any political party; it
wanted non-partisan Soviets that should truly reflect the needs and
express the will of the workers and peasants. The attitude of the
delegates was antagonistic to the arbitrary rule of bureaucratic
commissars, but friendly to the Communist Party as such. They were
staunch adherents of the Soviet system and they were earnestly seeking
to find, by means friendly and peaceful, a solution of the pressing
problems.
Kuzmin, Commissar of the Baltic Fleet, was the first to address the
Conference. A man of more energy than judgment, he entirely failed to
grasp the great significance of the moment. He was not equal to the
situation: he did not know how to reach the hearts and minds of those
simple men, the sailors and workers who had sacrificed so much for the
Revolution and were now exhausted to the point of desperation. The
delegates had gathered to take counsel with the representatives of the
government. Instead Kuzmin’s speech proved a firebrand thrown into
gunpowder. He insensed the Conference by his arrogance and insolence. He
denied the labor disorders in Petrograd, declaring that the city was
quiet and the workers satisfied. He praised the work of the Commissars,
questioned the revolutionary motives of Kronstadt, and warned against
dangerfrom Poland.
He stooped to unworthy insinuations and thundered threats. “If you want
to open warfare”, Kuzmin concluded, “you shall have it, for the
Communists will not give up the reins of government. We will fight to
the bitter end.”
This tactless and provoking speech of the Commissar of the Baltic Fleet
served to insult and outrage the delegates. The address of the Chairman
of the Kronstadt Soviet, the Communist Vassiliev, who was the next
speaker, made no impression on the audience: the man was colorless and
indefinite. As the meeting progressed, the general attitude became more
clearly anti-Bolshevik. Still the delegates were hoping to reach some
friendly understanding with the representatives of the government. But
presently it became apparent, states the official report,[2] that “we
could not trust comrades Kuzmin and Vassiliev anymore, and that it was
necessary to detain them temporarily, especially because the Communists
were in possession of arms, and we had no access to the telephones. The
soldiers stood in fear of the Commissars, as proved by the letter read
at the meeting, and the Communists did not permit gatherings of the
garrison to take place.”
Kuzmin and Vassiliev were therefore removed from the meeting and placed
under arrest. It is characteristic of the spirit of the Conference that
the motion to detain the other Communists present was voted down by an
overwhelming majority. The delegates held the Communists must be
considered on equal footing with the representatives of other
organizations and accorded the same rights and treatment. Kronstadt
still was determined to find some bond of agreement with the Communist
Party and the Bolshevik Government.
The resolutions of March 1 were read and enthusiastically passed. At
that moment the Conference was thrown into great excitement by the
declaration of a delegate that the Bolsheviki were about to attack the
meeting and that fifteen carloads of soldiers and Communists, armed with
rifles and machine guns, had been dispatched for that purpose. “This
information”, the Izvestia report continues, “produced passionate
resentment among the delegates. Investigation soon proved the report
groundless, but rumors persisted that a regiment of kursanti, headed by
the notorious Tchekist Dukiss, was already marching in the direction of
the Fort Krasnaia Gorka”. In view of these new developments, and
remembering the threats of Kuzmin and Kalinin, the Conference at once
took up the question of organising the defense of Kronstadt against
Bolshevik attack. Time pressing, it was decided to turn the Presidium of
the Conference into a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which was
charged with the duty of preserving the order and safety of the city.
That committee was also to make the necessary preparations for holding
the new elections to the Kronstadt Soviet.
Petrograd was in a state of high nervous tension. New strikes had broken
out and there were persistent rumors of labor disorders in Moscow, of
peasant uprisings in the East and in Siberia. For lack of a reliable
public press the people gave credence to the most exaggerated and even
to obviously false reports. All eyes were on Kronstadt in expectation of
momentous developments.
The Bolsheviki lost no time in organizing their attack against
Kronstadt. Already on March 2 the Government issued a prikaz (order)
signed by Lenin and Trotsky, which denounced the Kronstadt movement as
in mutiny against the Communist authorities. In that document the
sailors were charged with being “the tools of former Tsarist generals
who together with Socialist -Revolutionary traitors staged a
counter-revolutionary conspiracy against the proletarian Republic”. The
Kronstadt movement for free Soviets was characterized by Lenin and
Trotsky as “the work of Entente interventionists and French spies”. “On
February 28”, the prikaz read, “there were passed by the men of the
Petropavlovsk resolutions breathing the spirit of the Black Hundreds.
Then there appeared on the scene the group of the former general,
Kozlovsky. He and three of his officers, whose names we have not yet
ascertained, have openly assumed the rĂ´le of rebellion. Thus the meaning
of recent events has become evident. Behind the Socialist-Revolutionists
again stands a Tsarist general. In view of all this the Council of Labor
and Defense orders:
law;
hands of the Petrograd Committee of Defense.”
There was indeed a former general, Kozlovsky, in Kronstadt. It was
Trotsky who had placed him there as an Artillery specialist. He played
no rĂ´le whatever in the Kronstadt events, but the Bolsheviki clearly
exploited his name to denounce the sailors as enemies of the Soviet
Republic and their movement as counterrevolutionary. The official
Bolshevik press now began its campaign of calumny and defamation of
Kronstadt as a hotbed of “White conspiracy headed by General Kozlovsky”,
and Communist agitators were sent among the workers in the mills and
factories of Petrograd and Moscow to call upon the proletariat “to rally
to the support and defense of the Workers and Peasants Government
against the counter-revolutionary uprising in Kronstadt”.
Far from having anything to do with generals and counterrevolutionists,
the Kronstadt sailors refused to accept aid even from the
Socialist-Revolutionist Party. Its leader, Victor Tchernov, then in
Reval, attempted to influence the sailors in favor of his Party and its
demands, but received no encouragement from the ProvisionalRevolutionary
Committee. Tchernov sent to Kronstadt the following radio message:[3]
The Chairman of the Constituent Assembly, Victor Tchernov, sends his
fraternal greetings to the heroic comrades-sailors, the Red Army men and
workers, who for the third time since 1905 are throwing off the yoke of
tyranny. He offers to aid with men and to provision Kronstadt through
the Russian coöperatives abroad. Inform what and how much is needed. Am
prepared to come in person and give my energies and authority to the
service of the people’s revolution. I have faith in the final victory of
the laboring masses. *** Hail to the first to raise the banner of the
People’s Liberation! Down with despotism from the left and right!
At the same time the Socialist-Revolutionist Party sent the following
message to Kronstadt:
The Socialist-Revolutionist delegation abroad *** now that cup of the
People’s wrath is overflowing, offers to help with all means in its
power in the struggle for liberty and popular government. Inform in what
ways help is desired. Long live the people’s revolution! Long live free
Soviets and the Constituent Assembly!
The Kronstadt Rrevolutionary Committee declined the
Socialist-Revolutionist offers. It sent the following reply to Victor
Tchernov:
The provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt expresses to all
our brothers abroad its deep gratitude for their sympathy. The
Provisional Revolutionary Committee is thankful for the offer of Comrade
Tchernov, but refrains for the present: that is, till further
developments become clarified. Meantime everything will be taken into
consideration
PETRICHENKO
Chairman provisional Revolutionary Committee
Moscow, however, continued its campaign of misrepresentation. On March 3
the Bolshevik radio station sent out the following message to the world
(certain parts undecipherable owing to interference from another
station):
organized by the spies of the Entente, like many similar previous plots,
is evident from the bourgeois French newspaper Matin, which two weeks
prior to the Kozlovsky rebellion published the following telegram from
Helsingfors: “As a result of the recent Kronstadt uprising the Bolshevik
military authorities have taken steps to isolate Kronstadt and to
prevent the sailors and soldiers of Kronstadt from entering Petrograd.”
organized by the French secret service. *** The
Socialist-Revolutionists, also controlled and directed from Paris, have
been preparing rebellions against the Soviet Government, and no sooner
were their preparations made than there appeared the real master, the
Tsarist general.
The character of the numerous other messages sent by Moscow can be
judged by the following radio:
Petrograd is orderly and quiet, and even a few factories where
accusations against the Soviet Government were recently voiced now
understand that it is the work of provocators. They realise where the
agents of the Entente and of counter-revolution are leading them to.
assuming the reins of government and showing inclination to take up
business relations with Soviet Russia, the spreading of lying rumors and
the organization of disturbances in Kronstadt have the sole purpose of
influencing the new American President and changing his policy toward
Russia. At the same time the London Conference is holding its sessions,
and the spreading of similar rumors must influence also the Turkish
delegation and make it more submissive to the demands of the Entente.
The rebellion of the Petropavlovsk crew is undoubtedly part of a great
conspiracy to create trouble within Soviet Russia and to injure our
international position. *** This plan is being carried out within Russia
by a Tsarist general and former officers, and their activities are
supported by the Mensheviki and Socialist-Revolutionists.
The Petrograd committee of defense, directed by Zinoviev, its chairman,
assumed full control of the city and Province of Petrograd. The whole
Northern District was put under martial law and all meetings prohibited.
Extraordinary precautions were taken to protect the Government
institutions and machine guns were placed in the Astoria, the hotel
occupied by Zinoviev and other high Bolshevik functionaries. The
proclamations posted on the street bulletin boards ordered the immediate
return of all strikers to the factories, prohibited suspension of work,
and warned the people against congregating on the streets. “In such
cases”, the order read, “the soldiery will resort to arms. In case of
resistance, shooting on the spot”.
The committee of defense took up the systematic “cleaning of the city”.
Numerous workers, soldiers and sailors suspected of sympathizing with
Kronstadt, were placed under arrest. All Petrograd sailors and several
Army regiments thought to be “politically untrustworthy” were ordered to
distant points, while the families of Kronstadt sailors living in
Petrograd were taken into custody as hostages. The Committee of Defense
notified Kronstadt of its action by proclamation scattered over the city
from an aeroplane on March 4, which stated: “The Committee of Defense
declares that the arrested are held as hostages for the Commissar of the
Baltic Fleet, N. N. Kuzmin, the Chairman of the Kronstadt Soviet, T.
Vassiliev, and other Communists. If the least harm be suffered by our
detained comrades, the hostages will pay with their lives”.
“We do not want bloodshed. Not a single Communists has been shot by us”,
was Kronstadt’s reply.
Kronstadt revived with the new life. Revolutionary enthusiasm rose to a
level of the October days when the heroism and devotion of the saliors
played such a decisive rĂ´le. Now for the first time since the Communist
Party assumed exclusive control of the Revolution and the fate of
Russia, Kronstadt felt itself free. A new spirit of solidarity and
brotherhood brought the sailors, the soldiers of the garrison, the
factory workers, and the nonpartisan elements together in united effort
for their common cause. Even Communists were affected by the
fraternalisation of the whole city and joined in the work preparatory to
the approaching elections to the Kronstadt Soviet.
Among the first steps taken by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee
was the preservation of revolutionary order in Kronstadt and the
publication of the Committee’s official organ, the daily Izvestia. Its
first appeal to the people of Kronstadt (issue No. 1, March 3, 1921) was
thoroughly characteristic of the attitude and temper of the sailors.
“The revolutionary committee”, it read, “is most concerned that no blood
be shed. It has exerted its best efforts to organize revolutionary order
in the city, the fortress and the forts. Comrades and citizens, do not
suspend work! Workers, remain at your machines; sailors and soldiers, be
on your posts. All Soviet employees and institutions should continue
their labors. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee calls upon you
all, comrades and citizens, to give it your support and aid. Its mission
is to organize, the fraternal cöoperation with you, the conditions
necessary for honest and just elections to the new Soviet”.
The pages of the Izvestia bear abundant witness to the deep faith of the
Revolutionary Committee in the people of Kronstadt and their aspirations
towards the free Soviets as the true road of liberation from the
oppression of Communist bureaucracy. In its daily organ and radio
messages the Revolutionary Committee indignantly resented the Bolshevik
campaign of calumny and repeatedly appealed to the proletariat of Russia
and of the world for understanding, sympathy, and help. The radio of
March 6 sounds the keynote of Kronstadt’s call:
Our cause is just: we stand for the power of Soviets, not parties. We
stand for freely elected representatives of the laboring masses. The
substitutes Soviets manipulated by the Communist Party have always been
deaf to our needs and demands; the only reply we have ever received was
shooting. *** Comrades! They not only deceive you: they deliberately
pervert the truth and resort to most despicable defamation. *** In
Kronstadt the whole power is exclusively in the hands of the
revolutionary sailors, soldiers and workers — not with the
counter-revolutionists led by some Kozlovsky, as the lying Moscow Radio
tries to make you believe. *** Do not delay, comrades! Join us, get in
touch with us: demand admission to Kronstadt for your delegates. Only
they will tell you the whole truth and expose the fiendish calumny about
Finnish bread and Entente offers.
Long live the revolutionary proletariat and the peasantry!
Long live the power of freely elected Soviets!
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee first had its headquarters on
the flagship Petropavlovsk, but within a few days it removed to the
“People’s Home”, in the center of Kronstadt, in order to be, as the
Izvestia states, “in closer touch with the people and make access to the
Committee easier than on the ship”. Although the Communist press
continued its turbulent denunciation of Kronstadt as “the
counter-revolutionary rebellion of the General Kozlovsky”, the truth of
the matter was that the Revolutionary Committee was exclusively
proletarian, consisting for the most part of workers of known
revolutionary record. The Committee comprised of following 15 members:
Not without a sense of humor to the Kronstadt Izvestia remark in this
connection: “These are our generals, Messrs. Trotsky and Zinoviev, while
the Brussilovs, the Kamenevs, the Tukhachevskis, and the other
celebrities of the Tsar’s régime are on your side.”
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee enjoyed the confidence of the
whole population of Kronstadt. It won general respect by establishing
and firmly adhering to the principle of “equal rights for all,
privileges to none”. The pahyok (food ration) was equalised. The
sailors, who under Bolshevik rule always received rations far in excess
of those allotted to the workers, themselves voted to accept no more
than the average citizen and toiler. Special rations and delicacies were
given only to hospitals and children’s homes.
The just and generous attitude of the Revolutionary Committee towards
the Kronstadt members of the Communist Party — few of whom had been
arrested in spite of Bolshevik repressions and all holding of sailors’
families as hostages — won the respect even of the Communists. The pages
of Izvestia contain numerous communications from Communist groups and
organizations of Kronstadt, condemning the attitude of the Central
Government and indorsing the stand and measures of the Provisional
Revolutionary Committee. Many Kronstadt Communists publicly announced
their withdrawal from the Party as a protest against its despotism and
bureaucratic corruption. In various issues of the Izvestia there are to
be found hundreds of names of Communists whose conscience made it
impossible for them to “remain in the Party of the executioner Trotsky”,
as some of them expressed it. Resignations from the Communist Party soon
became so numerous as to resemble a general exodus.[4] The following
letters, taken at random from a large batch, sufficiently characterize
the sentiment of the Kronstadt Communists:
I have come to realise that the policies of the Communist Party have
brought the country into a hopeless blind alley from which there is no
exit. The Party has become bureaucratic, it has learned nothing and it
does not want to learn. It refuses to listen to the voice of a 115
million peasants; it does not want to consider that only freedom of
speech and opportunity to participate in the reconstruction of the
country, by means of altered election methods, can bring our country out
of its lethargy.
I refused henceforth to consider myself a member of the Russian
Communist Party. I wholly approve of the resolution passed by the
all-city meeting on March 1, and I hereby place my energies and
abilities at the disposal of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
HERMAN KANEV
KRASNIY KOMANDIR (Red Army Officer)
Son of the political exile in the Trial of 193[5]
Izvestia, No. 3, March 5, 1921
COMRADES, MY PUPILS OF THE INDUSTRIAL,
RED ARMY, AND NAVAL SCHOOLS!
Almost thirty years I have lived in deep love for the people, and have
carried light and knowledge, so far as lay in my power, to all who
thirsted for it, up to the present moment.
The Revolution of 1917 gave greater scope to my work, increased my
activities, and I devoted myself with greater energy to the service of
my ideal.
The communist slogan, “All for the people”, inspired me with its
nobility and beauty, and in February, 1920, I entered the Russian
Communist Party as a candidate. But the “first shot” fired at the
peaceful population,at my dearly beloved children of which there are
about seven thousand in Kronstadt, fills me with horror that I may be
considered as sharing responsibility for the blood of the innocents thus
shed. I feel that I can no longer believe in and propagate that which
has disgraced itself by fiendish act. Therefore with the first shotI
have ceased to regard myself as a member of the Communist Party.
MARIA NIKOLAYEVNA SHATEL
(Teacher)
Izvestia, No. 6, March 8, 1921
Such communications appeared in almost every issue of the Izvestia. Most
significant was the declaration of the Provisional Bureau of the
Kronstadt Section of the Communist Party, whose Manifesto to its members
was published in the Izvestia, No. 2, March 4^(th):
hour.
Give no credence to the false rumors that Communists are being shot, and
that the Kronstadt Communists are about to rise up in arms. Such rumors
are spread to cause bloodshed.
We declare that our Party has always been defending the conquests of the
working-class against all known and secret enemies of the power of the
workers’ and peasants’ Soviets, and will continue to do so.
The Provisional Bureau of the Kronstadt Communist Party recognizes the
necessity for elections to the Soviet and calls upon the members of the
Communist Party to take part in the elections.
The Provisional Bureau of the Communist Party directs all members of the
Party to remain at their posts and in no way to obstruct or interfere
with the measures of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
Long live the power of the Soviets!
Long live the international union of workers!
PROVISIONAL BUREAU OF THE KRONSTADT SECTION OF THE RUSSIAN COMMUNIST
PARTY:
F. PERVUSHIN
Y.YLYIN
A. KABANOV
Similarly various other organizations, civil and military, expressed
their opposition to the Moscow régime and their entire agreement with
the demands of the Kronstadt sailors. Many resolutions to that effect
were also passed by Red Army regiments stationed in Kronstadt and on
duty in the forts. The following is expressive of their general spirit
and tendency:
We, Red Army soldiers of the Fort “Krasnoarmeetz”, stand wholly with the
Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and to the last moment we will
defend the Revolutionary Committee, the workers and peasants.
from aeroplanes. We have no generals here and no Tsarist officers.
Kronstadt has always been the city of workers and peasants, and so it
will remain. The generals are in the service of the Communists.
who have taken power into our own hands and who have entrusted the
Revolutionary Committee with leadership in the fight — we declare to the
whole garrison and to the workers that we are prepared to die for the
liberty of the laboring masses. Freed from the three-year old Communist
yoke and terror we shall die rather than recede a single step. Long live
Free Russia of the Working People!
CREW OF THE FORT “KRASNOARMEETZ”
Izvestia, No. 5, March 7, 1921
Kronstadt was inspired by passionate love of a Free Russia and unbounded
faith in true Soviets. It was confident of gaining the support of the
whole of Russia, of Petrograd in particular, thus bringing about the
final liberation of the country. The Kronstadt Izvestia reiterates this
attitude and hope, and in the numerous articles and appeals it seeks to
clarify its position towards the Bolsheviki and its aspiration to lay
the foundation of a new, free life for itself and the rest of Russia.
This great aspiration, the purity of its motives, and its fervent hope
of liberation standout in striking relief on the pages of the official
organ of the Kronstadt Provisional Revolutionary Committee and
thoroughly express the spirit of the soldiers, sailors and workers. The
virulent attacks of the Bolshevik press, the infamous lies sent
broadcast by the Moscow radio station accusing Kronstadt of
counter-revolution and White conspiracy, the Revolutionary Committee
replied to in a dignified manner. It often reproduced in its organ the
Moscow proclamations in order to show to the people of Kronstadt to what
depths the Bolsheviki had sunk. Occasionally the Communist methods where
exposed and characterized by the Izvestia with just indignation, as in
its issue of March 8, (No. 6), under the heading “We and They”:
Not knowing how to retain the power that is falling from their hands,
the Communists resort to the vilest provocative means. Their
contemptible press has mobilized all its forces to incite the masses and
put the Kronstadt movement in the light of White guard conspiracy. Now a
clique of shameless villains has sent word to the world that “Kronstadt
has sold itself to Finland”. Their newspapers spit fire and poison, and
because they have failed to persuade the proletariat that Kronstadt is
in the hands of counter-revolutionists, they are now trying to play on
the nationalistic feelings.
The whole world already knows from our radios what the Kronstadt
garrison and workers are fighting for. But the Communists are striving
to pervert the meaning of events and thus mislead our Petrograd
brothers.
Petrograd is surrounded by the bayonets of the kursanti and the Party
“guards”, and Maliuta Skuratov — Trotsky — does not permit the delegates
of the nonpartisan workers and soldiers to go to Kronstadt. He fears
they would learn the whole truth there, and that truth would immediately
sweep the Communists away and thus enlightened laboring masses would
take the power into their own brawny hands.
That is the reason that the Petro-Soviet (Soviet of Petrograd) did not
reply to our radio telegram in which we asked that really impartial
comrades be sent to Kronstadt.
Fearing for their own skins, the leaders of the Communists suppress the
truth and disseminate the lie that White guardists are active in
Kronstadt, that the Kronstadt proletariat has sold itself to Finland and
to French spies, that the Finns have already organized an army in order
to attack Petrograd with the aid of the Kronstadtmyatezhnbiki mutineers
and so forth.
To all this we can reply only this: all power to the Soviets! Keep your
hands off them, the hands that are red with the blood of the martyrs of
liberty who have died fighting against the White guardists, the
landlords, and the bourgeoisie!
In simple and frank speech Kronstadt sought to express the will of the
people yearning for freedom and for the opportunity to shape their own
destinies. It felt itself the advance guard, so to speak, of the
proletariat of Russia about to rise in defense of the great aspirations
for which the people that fought and suffered in the October Revolution.
The faith of the Kronstadt in the Soviet system was deep and firm; its
all-inclusive slogan, All power to the Soviets, not to parties! That was
its program; it did not have time to develop it or to theorize. It
strove for the emancipation of the people from the Communist yoke. That
yoke, no longer a bearable,made a new revolution, the Third Revolution,
necessary. The road to liberty and peace lay in freely elected Soviets,
“the cornerstone of the new revolution”. The pages of the Izvestia bear
rich testimony to the unspoiled directness and single-mindedness of the
Kronstadt sailors and workers, and the touching faith they had in their
mission as the initiators of the Third Revolution. These aspirations and
hopes are clearly set forth in NO.6 of the Izvestia, March 8, in the
leading editorial entitled “What We Are Fighting For”:
With the October Revolution the working class had hoped to achieve its
emancipation. But there resulted an even greater enslavement of human
personality.
The power of the police and gendarme monachy fell into the hands of
usurpers — the Communists — who, instead of giving the people liberty,
have instilled in them only the constant fear of the Tcheka, which by
its horrors surpasses even the gendarme régime of Tsarism. *** Worst and
most cruel of all is the spiritual cabal of the Communists: they have
laid their hands also on the internal world of the laboring masses,
compelling everyone to think according to Communist prescription.
emancipation, is drenched with the blood of those martyred for the
greater glory of Communist dominion. In that sea of blood, the
Communists are drowning all the bright promises and possibilities of the
workers’ revolution. It has now become clear that the Russian Communist
Party is not the defender of the laboring masses, as it pretends to be.
The interests of the working people are foreign to it. Having gained
power, it is now fearful only of losing it, and therefore it considers
all means permissible: defamation, deceit, violence, murder, and
vengeance upon the families of the rebels.
There is an end to long, suffering patience. Here and there the land is
lit up by the fires of rebellion in a struggle against oppression and
violence. Strikes of workers have multiplied, but the Bolshevik police
régime has taken every precaution against the outbreak of the inevitable
Third Revolution.
But in spite of it all it has come, and it is made by the hands of
laboring masses. The Generals of Communism see clearly that it is the
people who have risen, the people who have become convinced that the
Communists have betrayed the ideas of Socialism. Fearing for their
safety and knowing that there is no place they can hide in from the
wrath of the workers, the Communists still try to terrorize the rebels
with prison, shooting, and other barbarities. But life under the
Communist dictatorship is more terrible than death. ***
There is no middle road. To triumph or to die! The example is being set
by Kronstadt, the terror of counter-revolution from the right to and
from the left. Here has taken place the great revolutionary deed. Here
is raised the banner of rebellion against a three-year old tyranny and
oppression of Communist autocracy, which has put in the shade the
three-hundred-year old despotism of monarchism. Here, in Kronstadt, has
been laid the cornerstone of the Third Revolution which is to break the
last chains of the worker and open the new, broad road to Socialist
creativity.
This new revolution will rouse the masses of the East and the West, and
will serve as an example of new Socialist constructiveness, in
contradistinction to the governmental, cut-and-dried Communist
“construction”. The laboring masses will learn that what has been done
till now in the name of the workers and peasants was not Socialism.
Without firing a single shot, without shedding a drop of blood, the
first step has been taken. Those who labor need no blood. They will shed
it only in self-defense. *** The workers and peasants march on: they are
leaving behind them the utchredilka (Constituent Assembly) with its
bourgeois régime and the Communist Party dictatorship with its Tcheka
and State capitalism, which has put the noose around the neck of the
workers and threaten to strangle them to death.
The present change offers the laboring masses the opportunity of
securing, at last, freely elected Soviets which will function without
fear of the Party whip; they can now reorganize the governmentalised
labor unions into voluntary associations of workers, peasants, and
working intelligentsia. At last is broken the police club of Communist
autocracy.
That was the program, those the immediate demands, for which the
Bolshevik government began the attack of Kronstadt at 6:45 P.M., March
7^(th), 1921.
Kronstadt was generous. Not a drop of Communist blood did it shed, in
spite of all the provocation, the blockade of the city and repressive
measures on the part of the Bolshevik Government. It scorned to imitate
the Communist example of vengeance, even going to the extent of warning
the Kronstadt population not to be guilty of excesses against members of
the Communist party. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee issued a
call to the people of Kronstadt to that effect, even after the Bolshevik
Government had ignored the demand of the sailors for the liberation of
hostages taken in Petrograd. The Kronstadt demand sent by radio to the
Petrograd Soviet and the Manifesto of the Revolutionary Committee were
published on the same day, March 7, and are hereby reproduced:
In the name of the Kronstadt garrison the Provisional Revolutionary
Committee of Kronstadt demands that the families of the sailors, workers
and Red Army men held by the Petro-Soviet as hostages be liberated
within 24 hours.
The Kronstadt garrison declares that the Communists enjoy full liberty
in Kronstadt and their families are absolutely safe. The example of the
Petro-Soviet will not be followed here, because we consider such methods
(the taking of hostages) most shameful and vicious even if prompted by
desperate fury. History knows no such infamy.
SAILOR PETRICHENKO
Chairman Provisional Revolutionary Committee
KILGAST
Secretary
The Manifesto to the people of Kronstadt read in part:
The long continued oppression of the laboring masses by the Communist
dictatorship has produced very natural indignation and resentment on the
part of the people. As a result of it relatives of Communists have in
some instances been discharged from their positions and boycotted. That
must not be. We do not seek vengeance — we are defending our labour
interests.
Kronstadt lived in the spirit of its holy crusade. It had abiding faith
in the justice of its cause and felt itself the true defender of the
Revolution. In this state of mind the sailors did not believe that the
Government would attack them by force of arms. In the subconsciousness
of these simple children of the soil and sea there perhaps germinated
the feeling that not only through violence may victory be gained. The
Slavic psychology seemed to believe that the justice of the cause and
the strength of the revolutionary spirit must win. At any rate,
Kronstadt refuses to take the offensive. The Revolutionary Committee
would not accept the insistent advice of the military experts to make an
immediate landing in Oranienbaum, a fort of great strategic value. The
Kronstadt sailors and soldiers aimed to establish free Soviets and were
willing to defend their rights against attack; but they would not be the
aggressors.
In Petrograd there were persistent rumors that the Government was
preparing military operations against Kronstadt, but the people did not
credit such stories: the thing seem so outrageous as to be absurd. As
already mentioned, the Committee of Defense (officially known as the
Soviet of Labour and Defense) had declared the capital to be in an
“extraordinary state of siege”. No assemblies were permitted, no
gathering on the streets. The Petrograd workers knew little of what was
transpiring in Kronstadt, the only information accessible being the
Communist press and the frequent bulletins to the fact that the “Tsarist
General Kozlovsky organized a counter-revolutionary uprising in
Kronstadt”. Anxiously the people looked forward to the announced session
of the Petrograd Soviet which was to take action in the Kronstadt
matter.
The Petro-Soviet met on March 4, admission being by cards which, as a
rule, only Communists could procure. The writer, then on friendly terms
with the Bolsheviki and particularly with Zinoviev, was present. As
chairman of the Petrograd Soviet Zinoviev opened the session and in a
long speech set forth the Kronstadt situation. I confess that I came to
the meeting disposed rather in favor of the Zinoviev viewpoint: I was on
my guard against the vaguest possibility of counter-revolutionary
influence in Kronstadt. But Zinoviev’s speech itself convinced me that
the Communist accusations against the sailors were pure fabrication,
without scintilla of truth. I had heard Zinoviev on several previous
occasions. I found him a convincing Speaker, once his premises were
admitted. But now his whole attitude, his argumentation, his tone and
manner — all gave the lie to his words. I could sense his own conscience
protesting. The only “evidence” presented against Kronstadt was the
famous resolution on March 1, the demands of which were just and even
moderate. It was on the sole basis of that document, supported by the
vehement, almost hysterical denunciations of the sailors by Kalinin,
that the fatal step was taken. Prepared beforehand and presented by the
stentorian-voiced Yevdokimov, the right-hand man of Zinoviev, the
resolution against Kronstadt was passed by the delegates wrought up to a
high pitch of intolerance and blood thirst — passed amid a tumult of
protest from several delegates of Petrograd factories and the spokesmen
of the sailors. The resolution declared Kronstadt guilty of a
counter-revolutionary uprising against the Soviet power and demanded its
immediate surrender.
It was a declaration of war. Even many Communists refused to believe
that the resolution would be carried out: it were a monstrous thing to
attack by force of arms the “pride and glory of the Russian Revolution”,
as Trotsky had christened the Kronstadt sailors. In the circle of their
friends many sober-minded Communists threatened to resign from the Party
should such a bloody deed come to pass.
Trotsky had been expected to address the Petro-Soviet, and his failure
to appear was interpreted by some as indicating that the seriousness of
the situation was exaggerated. But during the night he arrived in
Petrograd and the following morning, March 5, he issued his ultimatum to
Kronstadt:
The Workers and Peasants Government has decreed that the Kronstadt and
the rebellious ships must immediately submit to the authority of the
Soviet Republic. Therefore I command all who have raised their hand
against the Socialist fatherland to lay down their arms at once. The
obdurate are to be disarmed and turned over to the Soviet authorities.
The arrested Commissars and other representatives of the Government are
to be liberated at once. Only those surrendering unconditionally may
count on the mercy of the Soviet Republic.
Simultaneously I am issuing orders to prepare to quell the mutiny and
subdue the mutineers by force of arms. Responsibility for the harm that
may be suffered by the peaceful population will fall entirely upon the
heads of the counter-revolutionary mutineers. This warning is final.
TROTSKY
Chairman Revolutionary Military Soviet of the Republic KAMENEV
Commander-in-Chief
The situation looked ominous. Great military forces continuously flowed
into Petrograd and its environs. Trotsky’s ultimatum was followed by a
prikaz which contained the historic threat, “I’ll shoot you like
pheasants”. A group of Anarchists then in Petrograd made a last attempt
to induce the Bolsheviki to reconsider their decision of attacking
Kronstadt. They felt it their duty to the Revolution to make an effort,
even if hopeless, to prevent the imminent massacre of the revolutionary
flower of Russia, the Kronstadt sailors and workers. On March 5 they
sent a protest to the Committee of Defense, pointing out the peaceful
intentions and just demands of Kronstadt, reminding the Communists of
the heroic revolutionary history of the sailors, and suggesting a method
of settling the dispute in a manner befitting comrades and
revolutionists. The document read:
To the Petrograd Soviet of Labour and Defense
Chairman Zinoviev:
To remain silent now is impossible, even criminal. Recent events impel
us Anarchists to speak out and to declare our attitude in the present
situation. The spirit of ferment and dissatisfaction manifest among the
workers and sailors is the result of causes that demand our serious
attention. Cold and hunger have produced disaffection, and the absence
of any opportunity for discussion and criticism is forcing the workers
and sailors to air their grievances in the open.
White-guardist bands wish and may try to exploit this dissatisfaction in
their own class interests. Hiding behind the workers and sailors they
throw out slogans of the Constituent Assembly, of free trade, and
similar demands.
We Anarchists have long since exposed the fiction of these slogans, and
we declare to the whole world that we will fight with arms against any
counter-revolutionary attempt, in coöperation with all friends of the
Soviet Revolution and hand in hand with the Bolsheviki.
Concerning the conflict between the Soviet Government and the workers
and sailors, our opinion is that it must be settled not by force of arms
but by means of comradely, fraternal revolutionary agreement. Resorting
to bloodshed, on the part of the Soviet Government, will not — in the
given situation — intimidate or quieten the workers. On the contrary, it
will serve only to aggravate matters and will strengthen the hands of
the Entente and of internal counter-revolution. More important still,
the use of force by the Workers and Peasants Government against workers
and sailors will have a reactionary effect upon the international
revolutionary movement and will everywhere result in incalculable harm
to the Social Revolution. Comrades Bolsheviki, bethink yourselves before
it too late! Do not play with fire: you are about to make a most serious
and decisive step. We hereby submit to you the following proposition:
Let a Commission be selected to consist of five persons, inclusive of
two Anarchists. The Commission is to go to Kronstadt to settle the
dispute by peaceful means. In the given situation this is the most
radical method. It will be of international revolutionary significance.
Petrograd
March 5, 1921
ALEXANDER BERKMAN
EMMA GOLDMAN
PERKUS
PETROVSKY
Zinoviev informed that a document in connection with the Kronstadt
problem was to be submitted to the Soviet of Defense, sent his personal
representative for it. Whether the letter was discussed by that body is
not known to the writer. At any rate, no action was taken in the matter.
Kronstadt, heroic and generous, was dreaming of liberating Russia by the
Third Revolution which it felt proud to have initiated. It formulated no
definite program. Liberty and universal brotherhood were its slogans. It
thought of the Third Revolution as a gradual process of emancipation,
the first step in that direction being the free election of independent
Soviets, uncontrolled by any political party and expressive of the will
and interests of the people. The whole-hearted, unsophisticated sailors
were proclaiming to the workers of the world their great Ideal, and
calling upon the proletariat to join forces in the common fight,
confident that their Cause would find enthusiastic support and that
workers at Petrograd, first and foremost, would hasten to their aid.
Meanwhile Trotsky had collected his forces. The most trusted divisions
from the fronts, kursanti regiments, Tcheka detachments, and military
units consisting exclusively of Communists were now gathered in the
forts of Sestroretsk, Lissy Noss, Krasnaia Gorka, and neighboring
fortified places. The greatest Russian military experts were rushed to
the scene to form plans for the blockade and attack of Kronstadt, and
the notorious Tukhachevski was appointed Commander-in-Chief in the siege
of Kronstadt.
On March 7, at 6:45 in the evening, the Communist batteries of
Sestroretsk and Lissy Noss fired the first shots against Kronstadt.
It was the anniversary of the Woman Workers’ Day. Kronstadt, besieged
and attacked, did not forget the great holiday. Under fire of numerous
batteries, the brave sailors sent a radio greeting to the workingwomen
of the world, an act most characteristic of the psychology of the Rebel
City. The radio read:
Today is a universal holiday — Women Workers’ Day. We of Kronstadt send,
amid the thunder of cannon, our fraternal greetings to workingwomen of
the world. *** May you soon accomplish your liberation from every form
of violence and oppression. *** Long live the free revolutionary
workingwomen! Long live the Social Revolution throughout the world!
No less characteristic was the heart rending cry of Kronstadt, “Let The
Whole World Know”, published after the first shot had been fired, in No.
6 of the Izvestia, March 8:
The first shot has been fired...Standing up to his knees in the blood of
the workers Marshal Trotsky was the first to open fire against
revolutionary Kronstadt which has risen against the autocracy of the
Communists to establish the true power of the Soviets.
Without shedding a drop of blood we, Red Army men, sailors, and workers
of Kronstadt have freed ourselves from the yoke of the Communists and
have even preserved their lives. By the threat of artillery they want
now to subject us again to their tyranny.
Not wishing bloodshed, we asked that nonpartisan delegates of the
Petrograd proletariat be sent to us, that they may learn that Kronstadt
is fighting for the Power of the Soviets. But the Communists have kept
our demand from the workers of Petrograd and now they have opened fire —
the usual reply of the pseudo Workers’ and Peasants’ Government to the
demands of the laboring masses.
But the workers of the whole world know that we, the defenders of the
Soviet Power, are guarding the conquest of the Social Revolution.
We will win or perish beneath the ruins of Kronstadt, fighting for the
just cause of the laboring masses.
The workers of the world will be our judges. The blood of the innocent
will fall upon the heads of the Communist fanatics drunk with the
authority.
Long live the Power of the Soviets!
The artillery bombardment of Kronstadt, which began on the evening of
March 7, was followed by the attempt to take the fortress by storm. The
attack was made from the north and south by picked Communist troops clad
in white shrouds, the color of which protectively blended with the snow
lying thick on the frozen Gulf of Finland. These first terrible attacks
to take the fortress by storm, at the reckless sacrifice of life, are
mourned by the sailors in touching commiseration for their brothers in
arms, duped into believing Kronstadt counter-revolutionary. Under date
of March 8^(th) the Kronstadt Izvestia wrote:
We did not want to shed the blood of our brothers, and we did not fire
is single shot until compelled to do so. We had to defend the just cause
of the laboring people and to shoot — to shoot at our ownbrothers sent
to certain death by Communists who have grown fat at the expense of the
people.
shrouded everything in darkness. Nevertheless, the Communist
executioners, counting no cost, drove you along the ice, threatening you
in the rear with their machine guns operated by Communist detachments.
Many of you perished that night on the icy vastness of the Gulf of
Finland. And when day broke and the storm quieted down, only pitiful
remnants of you, worn and hungry, hardly able to move, came to us clad
in your white shrouds.
Early in the morning there were already about a thousand of you and
later in the day a countless number. Dearly you have paid with your
blood for this adventure, and after your failure Trotsky rushed back to
Petrograd to drive new martyrs to slaughter — for cheaply he gets our
workers’ and peasants’ blood!...
Kronstadt lived in deep faith that the proletariat of Petrograd would
come to its aid. But the workers there were terrorized, and Kronstadt
effectively blockaded and isolated, so that in reality no assistance
could be expected from anywhere.
The Kronstadt garrison consisted of less than 14,000 man, 10,000 of them
being sailors. This garrison had to defend a widespread front, many
forts and batteries scattered over the vast area of the Gulf. The
repeated attacks of the Bolsheviki, whom the Central Government
continuously supplied with fresh troops; the lack of provisions in the
besieged city; the long sleepless nights spent on guard in the cold —
all were sapping the vitality of Kronstadt. Yet the sailors heroically
persevered, confident to the last that their great example of liberation
would be followed throughout the country and thus bring them relief and
aid.
In its “Appeal to Comrades Workers and Peasants” the Provisional
Revolutionary Committee says (Izvestia No. 9, March 11):
Comrades Workers, Kronstadt is fighting for you, for the hungry, the
cold, the naked. *** Kronstadt has raised the banner of rebellion and it
is confident that tens of millions of workers and peasants will respond
to its call. It cannot be that the daybreak which has begun in Kronstadt
should not become bright sunshine for the whole of Russia. It cannot be
that the Kronstadt explosion should fail to rouse the whole of Russia
and first of all, Petrograd.
But no help was coming, and with every successive day Kronstadt was
growing more exhausted. The Bolsheviki continued massing fresh troops
against the besieged fortress and weakening it by constant attacks.
Moreover, every advantage was on the side of the Communists, including
numbers, supplies, and position. Kronstadt had not been built to sustain
an assault from the rear. The rumor spread by the Bolsheviki that the
sailors meant to bombard Petrograd was false on the face of it . The
famous fortress had been planned with the sole view of serving as a
defense of Petrograd against foreign enemies approaching from the sea.
Moreover, in case the city should fall into the hands of an external
enemy, the coast batteries and forts of Krasnaia Gorka had been
calculated for a fight against Kronstadt. Foreseeing such a possibility,
the builders had purposely failed to strengthen the rear of Kronstadt.
Almost nightly the Bolsheviki continued their attacks. All through March
10 Communist artillery fired incessantly from the southern and northern
coasts. On the night of the 12–13 the Communists attacked from the
south, again resorting to the white shrouds and sacrificing many
hundreds of the kursanti. Kronstadt fought back desperately, in spite of
many sleepless nights, lack of food and men. It fought most heroically
against simultaneous assaults from the north, east and south, while the
Kronstadt batteries were capable of defending the fortress only from its
western side. The sailors lacked even an ice-cutter to make the approach
of the Communist forces impossible.
On March 16 the Bolsheviki made a concentrated attack from three sides
at once — from north, south and east. “The plan of attack”, later
explained Dibenko, formally Bolshevik naval Commissar and later dictator
of defeated Kronstadt, “was worked out in minutest detail according to
the directions of Commander-in-Chief Tukhachevsky and the field staff of
the Southern Corps. *** At dark we began the attack upon the forts. The
white shrouds and the courage of the kursanti made it possible for us to
advance in columns.”
On the morning of March 17 a number of forts had been taken. Through the
weakest spot of Kronstadt — the Petrograd Gates — the Bolsheviki broke
into the city, and then there began most brutal slaughter. The
Communists spared by the sailors now betrayed them, attacking from the
rear. Commisar of the Baltic Fleet Kuzmin and Chairman of the Kronstadt
Soviet Vassiliev, liberated by the Communists from jail, now
participated in hand-to-hand street fighting in fratricidal bloodshed.
Until late in the night continued the desperate struggle of the
Kronstadt sailors and soldiers against overwhelming odds. The city which
for fifteen days had not harmed a single Communist, now ran red with the
blood of Kronstadt men, women and even children.
Dibenko, appointed Commissar of Kronstadt, was vested with absolute
powers to “clean the mutinous City”. An orgy of revenge followed, with
the Tcheka claiming numerous victims for its nightly wholesale
razstrelshooting.
On March 18 the Bolshevik Government and the Communist Party of Russia
publicly commemorated the Paris Commune of 1871, drowned in the blood of
the French workers by Gallifet and Thiers. At the same time they
celebrated the “victory” over Kronstadt.
For several weeks the Petrograd jails were filled with hundreds of
Kronstadt prisoners. Every night small groups of them were taken out by
order of the Tcheka and disappeared — to be seen among the living no
more. Among the last shot was Perepelkin, member of the Provisional
Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt.
The prisons and concentration camps in the frozen district of Archangel
and the dungeons a far off Turkestan are slowly doing to death the
Kronstadt men who rose against Bolshevik bureaucracy and proclaimed in
March, 1921, the slogan of the Revolution of October, 1917: “All Power
to the Soviets!”
The Kronstadt movement was spontaneous, unprepared, and peaceful. That
it became an armed conflict, ending in a bloody tragedy, was entirely
due to the Tartar despotism of the Communist dictatorship.
Though realizing the general character the Bolsheviki, Kronstadt still
had faith in the possibility of an amicable solution. It believes the
Communist Government amenable to reason; it credited it with some sense
of justice and liberty.
The Kronstadt experience proves once more that government, the State —
whatever its name or form — is ever the mortal enemy of liberty and
self-determination. The state has no soul, no principles. It has but one
aim — to secure power and hold it, at any cost. That is the political
lesson of Kronstadt.
There is another, a strategic, lesson taught by every rebellion.
The success of the uprising is conditioned in its resoluteness, energy,
and aggressiveness. The rebels have on their side the sentiment of the
masses. That sentiment quickens with the rising tide of rebellion. It
must not be allowed to subside, to pale by a return to the drabness of
every-day life.
On the other hand, every uprising has against it the powerful machinery
of the State. The Government is able to concentrate in its hands the
sources of supply and the means of communication. No time must be given
the government to make use of its powers. Rebellion should be vigorous,
striking unexpectedly and determinedly. It must not remain localized,
for that means stagnation. It must broaden and develop. A rebellion that
localizes itself, plays the waiting policy, or puts itself on the
defensive, is inevitably doomed to defeat.
In this regard, especially, Kronstadt repeated the fatal strategic
errors of the Paris Communards. The latter did not follow the advice of
those who favored an immediate attack on Versailles while the Government
of Thiers was disorganized. They did not carry the revolution into the
country. Neither the Paris workers of 1871 nor the Kronstadt sailors
aimed to abolish the Government. The Communards wanted merely certain
Republican liberties, and when the Government attempted to disarm them,
they drove the Ministers of Thiers from Paris, established their
liberties and prepared to defend them — nothing more. Thus also
Kronstadt demanded only free elections to the Soviets. Having arrested a
few Commissars, the soldiers prepared to defend themselves against
attack. Kronstadt refused to act upon the advice of the military experts
immediately to take Oranienbaum. The latter was of utmost military
value, besides having 50,000 poods[6] of wheat belonging to Kronstadt. A
landing in Oranienbaum was feasible, the Bolsheviki would have been
taken by surprise and would have had no time to bring up reinforcements.
But the sailors did not want to take the offensive, and thus the
psychologic moment was lost. A few days afterward, when the declarations
and acts of the Bolshevik Government convinced Kronstadt that they were
involved in a struggle for life, it was too late to make good the
error.[7]
The same happened to the Paris Commune. When the logic of the fight
forced upon them demonstrated the necessity of abolishing the Thiers
régime not only in their own city but in the whole country, it was too
late. In the Paris Commune as in the Kronstadt uprising the tendency
toward passive, defensive tactics proved fatal.
Kronstadt fell. The Kronstadt movement for free Soviets was stifled in
blood, while at the same time the Bolshevik Government was making
compromises with European capitalists, signing the Riga peace, according
to which a population of 12 millions was turned over to the mercies of
Poland, and helping Turkish imperialism to suppress the republics of the
Caucasus.
But the “triumph” of the Bolsheviki over Kronstadt held within itself
the defeat of Bolshevism. It exposes the true character of the Communist
dictatorship. The Communisst proved themselves willing to sacrifice
Communism, to make almost any compromise with international capitalism,
yet refused the just demands of their own people — demands that voiced
the October slogans of the Bolsheviki themselves: Soviets elected by
direct and secret ballot, according to the Constitution of the
R.S.F.S.R.; and freedom of speech and press for the revolutionary
parties.
The Tenth All-Russian Congress of the Communist Party was in session in
Moscow at the time of the Kronstadt uprising. At that Congress the whole
Bolshevik economic policy was changed as a result of the Kronstadt
events and similarly threatening attitude of the people in various other
parts of Russia and Siberia. The Bolsheviki preferred to reverse their
basic policies, to abolish the razverstka (forcible requisition),
introduce freedom of trade, give concessions to capitalists and give up
communism itself — the communism for which the October Revolution was
fought, seas of blood shed, and Russia brought to ruin and despair — but
not to permit freely chosen Soviets.
Can anyone still question what the true purpose of the Bolsheviki was?
Did they pursue Communist Ideals or Government Power?
Kronstadt is of great historic significance. It sounded the death knell
Bolshevism with its Party dictatorship, mad centralization, Tcheka
terrorism and bureaucratic castes. It struck into the very heart of
Communist autocracy. At the same time it shocked the intelligent and
honest minds of Europe and America into a critical examination of
Bolshevik theories and practices. It exploded the Bolshevik myth of the
Communist State being the “Workers’ and Peasants’ Government”. It proved
that the Communist Party dictatorship and the Russian Revolution are
opposites, contradictory and mutually exclusive. It demonstrated that
the Bolshevik regime is unmitigated tyranny and reaction, and that the
Communist State is itself the most potent and dangerous
counter-revolution.
Kronstadt fell. But it fell victorious in its idealism and moral purity,
its generosity and higher humanity. Kronstadt was superb. It justly
prided itself on not having shed the blood of its enemies, the
Communists within its midst. It had no executions. The untutored,
unpolished sailors, rough in manner and speech, were too noble to follow
the Bolshevik example of vengeance: they would not shoot even the hated
Commissars. Kronstadt personified the generous, all for-giving spirit of
the Slavic soul and the century-old emancipation movement of Russia.
Kronstadt was the first popular and entirely independent attempt at
liberation from the yoke of State Socialism — an attempt made directly
by the people, by the workers, soldiers and sailors themselves. It was
the first step toward the third Revolution which is inevitable and
which, let us hope, may bring to long-suffering Russia lasting freedom
and peace.
Alexander Berkman
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[1] Armed units organized by the Bolsheviki for the purpose of
suppressing traffic and confiscating foodstuffs and other products. The
irresponsibility and arbitrariness of their methods were proverbial
throughout the country. The government abolished them in the Petrograd
Province on the eve of its attack against Kronstadt — a bribe to the
Petrograd proletariat. A. B.
[2] Izvestia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt,
No. 9, March 11, 1921.
[3] Published in Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (Socialist-Revolutionist
journal) No. 8, May, 1921. See also Moscow Izvestia (Communist) NO. 154,
JULY 13, 1922.
[4] The Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Russia considered
its Kronstadt Section so “demoralized” that after the defeat of the
Kronstadt it ordered a complete re-registration of all Kronstadt
Communists. A. B.
[5] The celebrated Trial of 193 in the early days of the revolutionary
movement of Russia. It began In the latter part of 1877, closing in the
first months of 1878. A.B.
[6] A pood equals 40 Russian or about 36 English pounds.
[7] The failure of Kronstadt to take Oranienbaum gave the Government an
opportunity to strengthen the fortress with its trusted regiments,
eliminate the “infected” parts of the garrison, and execute the leaders
of the aerial squadron which was about to join the Kronstadt rebels.
Later the Bolsheviki used the fortresses as a vantage point of attack
against Kronstadt. Among those executed in Oranienbaum were: Kolossov,
division chief of the Red Navy airmen and chairman of the Provisional
Revolutionary Committee just organized in Oranienbaum; Balachanov,
secretary of the Committee, and Committee members Romanov, Vladimirov,
etc. A.B.