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Title: The Truth about Kronstadt
Author: Marie Isidine
Date: 1921
Language: en
Topics: Kronstadt, Russian revolution
Source: Retrieved on 10th September 2021 from https://forgottenanarchism.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/the-truth-about-kronstadt-an-attempt-at-a-libertarian-soviet-revolution-by-marie-isidine/
Notes: Published in Les Temps Nouveaux.

Marie Isidine

The Truth about Kronstadt

At last, we have reliable information which allows us to understand the

true character of the Kronstadt movement, which the bolshevik government

has just crushed. And we can affirm, without hesitation, that this

movement was shamefully slandered: it has absolutely nothing in common

with the Whites, generals, Monarchists, agents of the Entente, etc. It

is also not a movement of dupes, led without their knowing by

reactionaries.

It is an absolutely spontaneous movement, without preparation, without

conspiracy, without outside guidance; it was only led by the sailors of

Kronstadt themselves, who knew full well what they wanted. And what they

wanted is in no way a counter-revolution, but change which will allow on

the contrary the Russian revolution to move forward, towards real

equality and a real management of the people by themselves. They took

the defence of the soviets – a creation of the Russian workers’ masses –

against a government which has, in effect, suppressed them, and replaced

them by a dictatorship of civil servants.

What may have confused the Western public and give credence to the

slander, was the joy shown at the news of the Kronstadt uprising by the

bourgeois press and the Russian reactionary parties. But isn’t that

always the case? If there was an attempt at a revolution in France,

wouldn’t the Royalists try to fish in troubled waters? And, during the

war, didn’t the German government encourage the Irish movement, and even

the Russian bolshevik movement, to further its own interests? Did this

prevent those movements from being clearly revolutionary? “Reactionary

manoeuvrings” are always an easy argument by which we shouldn’t be

fooled. When we think that, in 1893–94, Jaurès1 thought the Jesuits were

responsible for anarchist assassinations and talked about some red silk

shirts which had allegedly been found at all the homes searched and

which had certainly been given to them by people from the Church!

In Kronstadt, like everywhere else, reactionaries, if they were more

intelligent, should have, from the start, seen that they had nothing to

gain from it. In their Izvestia (paper of the Provisional Revolutionary

Committee), the revolted sailors vividly rejected the slander and

clearly stated that they had nothing in common with White generals.

By their action, the Kronstadt insurrection showed its complete

independence. Completely destitute, they still refused supplies from the

Entente. They even refused the financial help, almost 500 000 francs,

which Russian financiers in Paris offered to send. From Paris also, a

hundred Russian officers from reactionary armies offered their service

to Kronstadt, by radio; they were told:

“Stay where you are, we do not need you.”

Everyone who knows the Russian revolutionary movement knew, from the

start, what to think. Kronstadt sailors were already, during the first

revolution, in 1906, at the front of the movement; their role was very

important in the 1917 revolution. They have proved themselves to be of

an absolute intransigence and an extreme fighting spirit; under the

Kerensky government2, they proclaimed the Kronstadt commune and claimed

their autonomy. At the time, the government felt reluctant to use

repression and an agreement was reached. Trotsky said at that time,

answering some arguments: “Yes, the Kronstadt sailors are anarchists.

But, when the moment of the decisive fight for the revolution comes,

those who are now calling for repression will be soaping some ropes to

hang us all, while the Kronstadt sailors will give their lives to defend

us.” – Later, when the bolsheviks were the spokespeople for popular

demands (“peace, land and all the power to the workers’ and peasants’

soviets”), the Kronstadt sailors did more than their fair share to grant

them their victory. And, during the past few years, they were again

Petrograd’s rampart against reactionary armies. And they would have

suddenly become agents of the Whites? Kronstadt, a nest of reaction?

Impossible.

Information, documents from over there, have now confirmed what we had

felt until now. Let’s say a few words about the march of events

themselves.

At the end of February, troubles erupted among Petrograd’s workers; it

was an issue of supplies. There were strikes, and, as always, strikers

were arrested. Kronstadt, where discontentment against the government

was already rife, was moved and decided to support the Petrograd

comrades. The movement already took a political turn. The powers of the

Kronstadt soviet had long expired, but the government refused to allow

new elections, in order to preserve the power of the old, bolshevik

soviet. This was actually only one of the manifestations of the

dictatorship of the communist party, from which the Kronstadt sailors

had to suffer more than once.

A delegation was sent by the sailors to Petrograd, to study the

situation there and design a plan for common action. When it came back,

the following agenda was voted, on March 1^(st), by an assembly of the

crews of battleships:

“Having heard the reports of the representatives sent by the General

Assembly of the Fleet to find out about the situation in Petrograd, the

sailors demand:

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 10^(th) March 1921, of a Conference

of non-Party workers, solders 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’ control groups.

We demand that handicraft production be authorised provided it does

not utilise wage labour.”

The same resolution was then proposed at the Kronstadt citizens’ general

assembly, which comprised around 16.000 people, and unanimously adopted.

It then became a sort of charter for the movement. On March 2^(nd), at

the Kronstadt delegates’ meeting of the ships, military units, workshops

and workers’ unions (300 people in total), a “Provisional Revolutionary

Committee” was appointed and put in charge of organising new elections,

free this time, for the local soviet; this Committee made a daily

newspaper appear, the Izvestia, and that is what gives us information on

the goals and character of the movement. […]

A note-worthy fact: everything which we said of the character of the

Kronstadt movement was confirmed by the bolsheviks themselves. A Russian

bolshevik paper published in Riga, the Novyi Pout, while propagating the

fantasy of a reactionary Kronstadt, carelessly published, in its March

19^(th) issue, the following lines:

“The Kronstadt sailors are, generally, anarchists. They are not to the

right, but, on the contrary, to the left of communists. In their latest

radio broadcasts, they claim: “Long live the power of the soviets!” Not

once did they exclaim “Long live the Constitutional Assembly!” Why did

they rise up against the soviet government? Because they don’t think it

is soviet enough! They proclaim the same half-anarchist, half-communist

slogans which the bolsheviks themselves had shouted three years and a

half ago, right after the October revolution.

In their fight against the soviet government, the Kronstadt

insurrectionists talk about their deep hatred for the “bourgeoisie”, and

everything that goes with it. They say: the soviet government has become

“bourgeois”, Zinoviev is “stuffed”. Here, we are facing a rebellion from

the left, and not a rebellion from the right.”

The Kronstadt insurrection had been – for the moment at least –

vanquished. We do not know what impact it had in Russia, although we

feel a community of spirit between this and all these peasants’ and

workers’ revolts which, at the same time, were or are taking place

around the vast Russia. But a definite conclusion can be drawn for us.

Revolutionary Russia is making rapid progress: it hardly lingered on a

purely political emancipation and on the cult of universal suffrage, but

asked the great social question straight away. Now, it is the

social-democrat centralising statism which is falling apart.

The soviets, as they are imagined in the minds of the masses, represent

an extreme decentralisation and autonomy. The great, the hardest, the

most important question remains: the question of production not by the

state, but by the producers themselves.