The equalization of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs. The document includes remarkably detailed information about the resources, personnel, arms and plans of the Kronstadt rebellion. [11] Although there are no reliable figures for the rebels' battle losses, historians estimate that thousands were executed in the days following the revolt, and a like number were jailed, many in the Solovki labor camp. However, reading the document quickly shows that Kronstadt was not a product of a White conspiracy but rather that the White "National Centre" aimed to try and use a spontaneous "uprising" it thought was likely to "erupt there in the coming spring" for its own ends. The peasants responded to requisitioning by refusing to till their land. [21] He later acknowledged that many of his fellow mutineers were peasants from the south who were in sympathy with the peasant opposition movement against the Bolsheviks. Many of the Kronstadt sailors originated from peasant families so they despised the privileges the leaders of the Bolshevik Party received. Popular unrest finally grew into strikes, which led to riots, lockouts, arrests. Other commentators, such as the historian Richard Pipes, have argued that War communism was actually an attempt to immediately implement communist economics and that the Bolshevik leaders expected an immediate and large scale increase in economic output. But does this change matters? On January 22, 1905, unarmed demonstrators marching against the Russian Tsar were killed by the Imperial Guard. Not idly does the Mexican magazine quoted above ironically call the Kronstadt sailors the purest of the pure.. But many are interested in the problem of personal responsibility. Leon Davidovich Trotsky (November 7, 1879 - August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. To take documents into consideration does not mean to take them at their face value. It was attended by over 16,000 people, including Mikhail Kalinin, who was shouted off the platform when he tried to speak. that the veteran politicized Red sailor still predominated at Kronstadt at the end of 1920 is borne out by the hard statistical data available regarding the crews of the two major battleships, the Petropavlovsk and the Sevastopol, both renowned since 1917 for their revolutionary zeal and Bolshevik allegiance. I considered, and the Political Bureau made no objections, that negotiations with the sailors, and in case of necessity, their pacification, should be placed with those leaders who only yesterday enjoyed the political confidence of these sailors. In May, he suffered his first stroke and questions arose over who would succeed him. Leon Trotskys first role in the new government was serving as commissar for foreign affairs and making peace with the Germans. The Government responded with an ultimatum the same day. Lenin criticized Trotsky, accusing him of harassing the unions and abandoning his support for the proletariat. Only within these limits have I replied to criticism up to now. This memorandum was written between January and early February of 1921 by an agent of the National Centre in Finland.[5]. Over the next ten days three bloody assaults were launched against the fortress. At his trial, he put on a spirited defense and increased his popularity among the party's elite. The rebel leaders escaped to Finland. Between 1918 and 1920, Petrograd lost 75 percent of its population; Moscow lost 50 percent. Disillusioned with the Bolshevik government, the Krondstrat port would see another rebellion, this time against its former allies. But the civil war dragged on for three years. My problem is another one: I wish to describe the character of the Kronstadt uprising from a more general point of view. The introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) attenuated the friction but far from eliminated it. Why in particular has this variegated fraternity seized precisely upon Kronstadt? Apparently, that was not far enough for Stalin, so in February, 1929, Trotsky was banished entirely from the Soviet Union. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. Remembering the Kronstadt Rebellion (VII) | Autonomies But I seem to recall that even in the days of the October insurrection the Bolsheviks constituted less than one-half of the Kronstadt Soviet. In the early months of 1940, Trotsky's health was failing and he knew he was a marked man. The logic of the struggle would have given predominance in the fortress to the extremists, that is, to the most counterrevolutionary elements. The present disputes around Kronstadt revolve around the same class axis as the Kronstadt uprising itself, in which the reactionary sections of the sailors tried to overthrow the proletarian dictatorship. There was a hurry to gain control of the fortress before the melting of the bay as it would have made it impregnable for the land army. [quoted by Avrich, Kronstadt 1921, 111-112], Moreover, whether the "Memorandum" played a part in the revolt can be seen from the reactions of the White "National Centre" to the uprising. While in jail, Trotsky was admitted to the Bolshevik Party and released soon after. The Sailors needed no outside encouragement to raise the banner of insurrection. The city gave practically nothing to the village and took almost everything from it, chiefly for the needs of war. The whole leading stratum of the workers had also been drawn out of Petrograd. Ninety percent of all wages were "paid with goods" (payment in form of goods, rather than money). In this sense I carry full and complete responsibility for the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion. Trotsky finally dropped his opposition and, to show his allegiance to Lenin, ordered the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion (an uprising of sailors and longshoremen protesting heavy-handed Bolshevik tactics). How can the Kronstadt uprising cause such heartburn to Anarchists, Mensheviks, and liberal counter-revolutionists, all at the same time? Many rebels escaped across the ice into Finland; many were killed in the fighting, and many who survived were executed or sent to prison camps. Dandified and well-fed sailors, communists in name only, produced the impression of parasites in comparison with the workers and Red Army men of that time. Unless we are to deceive ourselves with pretentious slogans, false labels, etc., we shall see that the Kronstadt uprising was nothing but an armed reaction of the petty bourgeoisie against the hardships of social revolution and the severity of the proletarian dictatorship. Social Revolutionary-Anarchist soviets could serve only as a bridge from the proletarian dictatorship to capitalist restoration. The rebellion broke out during the discussion on the so-called trade union question. Later in the same year, he died on a prison camp in Soviet Union over charges of espionage.[16]. The task was difficult, as Trotsky directed a war effort that was at times on 16 different fronts. That set us thinking."[22]. Libertarian socialist Emma Goldman has criticized . Concerning the subsequent repressions, they were completely the affair of the Cheka. It was a rude shock to the Bolsheviks when the red sailors of Kronstadt went into open rebellion in March 1921. Lenin died on January 21, 1924, and Trotsky was isolated and alone, outmaneuvered by Stalin. No political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In 1921 Lenin more than once openly acknowledged that the partys obstinate defense of the methods of Military Communism had become a great mistake. They could play no other role, regardless of the ideas of their participants. He was held there for a month, before the Russian provisional government demanded his release. His legacy of being the most brilliant intellect of the Communist Revolution and his reputation as a tireless worker, rousing public speaker and decisive administrator was restored. As the Soviet government developed, he engaged in a power struggle against Joseph Stalin, which he lost, leading to his exile again and, eventually, his murder. Upon hearing that, after a moment of silence, Trotsky responded, those were good days.. Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters. In this lies the whole secret. The concentration of heavy armory and sailors on the small island made it a bulwark against foreign invasion, but also a tinderbox in times of internal unrest. Peasants refused to co-operate in producing food, as the government took away far too much of it. The Kronstadt rebellion ( Russian: , romanized : Kronshtadtskoye vosstaniye) was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. These gentlefolk do not have the slightest understanding of the criteria and methods of scientific research. [7] The Bolshevik government began its attack on Kronstadt on March 7. When Trotsky was sent into exile by Stalin and began to critique him, one of his opponents, anarchist Emma Goldman argued that his criticism of Stalin was at its base hypocritical given Trotskys role in crushing the uprising at Kronstadt. [15] After the World War II, he was returned to Soviet Union after being enlisted in the GPU. During the Soviet period the bourgeoisie has appeared principally in the guise of kulaks (i.e., the top stratum of the petty bourgeoisie), the socialist intelligentsia, and now in the form of the Communist bureaucracy. The need for supplies would have made the fortress directly dependent upon the foreign bourgeoisie and their agents, the White emigres. But beginning as early as 1918, and in any case not later than 1919, the fronts began to complain that the new contingents of Kronstadters were unsatisfactory, exacting, undisciplined, unreliable in battle, and doing more harm than good. During the years of the revolution we clashed not a few times with the Cossacks, the peasants, even with certain layers of workers (certain groups of workers from the Urals organized a volunteer regiment in the army of Kolchak!). On August 20, 1940, Trotsky was sitting at his desk in his study in Mexico City. What remained was the grey mass with big pretensions, but without political education and unprepared for revolutionary sacrifice. The shift in different stages of the revolution, like the transition from revolution to counterrevolution, is directly determined by changing political relations between the minority and the majority, between the vanguard and the class. The official SRs, incidentally, had no better attitude toward it. It requires, however, a few trifles: an equal and, moreover, an extremely high, development of the toiling masses. Kronstadt was clearly ripe for a rebellion. Table of Contents Archive Titles Authors . A similar movement arose in a number of other districts, especially in Tambovsky, under the banner of Social Revolutionaries. Finally, in different parts of the country so-called Green peasant detachments were active. A pattern of sharp protest and response escalated rapidly from here to a state of mutiny. This unanimity is all the more remarkable since the Anarchists defend, in the symbol of Kronstadt, genuine anti-state communism; the Mensheviks, at the time of the Kronstadt uprising, stood openly for the restoration of capitalism; and Miliukov stands for capitalism even now. Written: January 15, 1938. By March 6 Trotsky stated he was going to order the Red Army to attack these revolting sailors. The Kronstadters demanded privileges. The army's first orders were to neutralize the White Army (Socialist revolutionaries opposed to Bolshevik control) during the Russian Civil War. When parlor pinks try to mark out a different route for the October Revolution, after the event, we can only respectfully ask them to show us exactly where and when their great principles were confirmed in practice, at least partially, at least in tendency? When Kalinin reported back to Lenin and Zinoviev, their response was to isolate the island, order a press blackout, and organize special shipments of clothing, shoes, and meat into Petrograd. The Red Army brutally suppressed the rebellion, however in its wake, the policy of War Communism was replaced by the New Economic Policy. In 191718 the revolutionary workers led the peasant masses, not only of the fleet but of the entire country. Wright in the New International (February 1938). This asserted that the revolt had "undoubtedly been prepared by French counterintelligence" and that the Petropavlovsk resolution was a "SR-Black Hundred" resolution (SR stood for "Social Revolutionaries," a democratic socialist party that had been dominant in the soviets before the return of Lenin, and whose right-wing had refused to support the Bolsheviks; the "Black Hundreds" were a reactionary, indeed proto-fascist, force dating back to before the revolution which attacked Jews, labor militants and radicals, among others). The regime of the NEP could only gradually pacify the peasant, and, after him, the discontented sections of the army and the fleet. ISBN links support NWE through referral fees. Requisitions of bread had only begun and were mainly from the landlords and kulaks at that. Trotsky finally dropped his opposition and, to show his allegiance to Lenin, ordered the suppression of the Kronstadt Rebellion (an uprising of sailors and longshoremen protesting heavy-handed . The new prime minister, Alexander Kerensky, saw Trotsky as a major threat and had him arrested. 8, August 1938, pp. The organization, at the latest on 10th March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District. When conditions became very critical in hungry Petrograd the Political Bureau more than once discussed the possibility of securing an internal loan from Kronstadt, where a quantity of old provisions still remained. It was three years ago, Nikolai Sukhanov (a member of the Petrograd Soviet) reminded Leon Trotsky that he, Trotsky, had previously announced to the people of Petrograd that we shall conduct the work of the Petrograd Soviet in a spirit of lawfulness and of full freedom for all parties. The sailors at Kronstadt were putting in place their own commune where they put into practice the Libertarian and democratic societal ideas that they and their comrades who had previously fought under Lenin aspired to win in 1917. The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces. The peasants seized and divided the land most often under the leadership of the soldiers and sailors arriving in their home districts. The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside. Over 80 percent were drawn from Great Russian areas (mainly central Russia and the Volga area), some 10 percent from the Ukraine, and 9 percent from Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Poland. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}Hakeem Jeffries, Hunter Biden and Other Presidential Problem Kids, These Are the Major 2024 Presidential Candidates, Controversial Judge Aileen Cannon Not Out Just Yet, Russia Wants to Arrest Senator Lindsey Graham, Inside Jimmy and Rosalynn Carters 76-Year Love, 10 Wild Things George Santos Has Said and Done, Sen. John Fetterman Wants to Talk About Depression, 6 Key Players in Donald Trumps Indictment. He was clearly positioned as the Soviet Union's number-two man, next to Lenin. Actually the precise opposite occurred. 4, April 1938, pp. These latter-day Kronstadters will also be crushed true, without the use of arms since, fortunately, they do not have a fortress. There were, of course, no impassable bulkheads dividing the different social and political layers of Kronstadt. For decades, Trotsky was discredited in the Soviet Union, the result of Stalin's hatred and his totalitarian control. We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution. First Published: The New International, Vol. While there, he became enthralled with Marxism. The general spirit of the meeting made an extremely unfavorable impression upon me. When I met opposition from the leaders of the party, I did not appeal to the ranks, in order to avoid mobilizing the petty bourgeoisie against the workers. They based themselves on the peasant part of the fleet and of the shore garrison. He was elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, a strong hold of dissent against the provisional government. But the remarkable thing is that it was precisely the Anarchists all over the world who looked upon the NEP as a betrayal of communism. Underground organizers sent by the SRs and the White officers tried to link the military uprising with the movement of the discontented workers. Participating in the campaign with equal zeal and under one and the same slogan are Anarchists, Russian Mensheviks, left Social Democrats of the London Bureau, individual blunderers, Miliukovs paper, and, on occasion, the big capitalist press. The abolition of Party guards in factories and enterprises. Kronstadt sailors, these purest of the pure. Though the government forces lost hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded, they numbered about 45,000 troops by March 16, when the final assault was launched. During the early years of the Social Democratic Party, there were often disputes among the party's leadership over its form and strategy. Refugees in Finland were pardoned through an amnesty too. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Trotsky tried to reconcile the two factions, resulting in numerous clashes with both groups' leaders. Peter the Great captured the island from the Swedes in 1703 and built it into a naval fortress to protect his new capital. Such was the course of Kronstadt. 2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. The famous cruiser Aurora, which had bombarded the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917 with its famous shot heard round the world, belonged to the Baltic Fleet based in Kronstadt. The working class, not to speak of the semiproletarian masses, is not homogeneous, either socially or politically. We must recognize social and political differences. 1921: The Kronstadt rebellion | libcom.org Some leaders of the uprising came from among these elements. Scott Zenkatsu Parker, edited by Mary Huey, a Translation with notes from the authors, online, Kronstadtin kapina 1921 ja sen perilliset Suomessa (Kronstadt Rebellion 1921 and Its Descendants in Finland) by Erkki Wessmann. It is symbolic of that turning point as Trotsky, the well-known pamphleteer and preacher of libertarian values and egalitarianism, was the commander of the oppressive force that crushed those heartfelt Communists at Kronstadt. It seemed at first as if Kronstadt were inexhaustible. The decision to suppress the rebellion by military force, if the fortress could not be induced to surrender, first by peace negotiations, then through an ultimatum this general decision was adopted with my direct participation. But in such conditions the dictatorship would in general be unnecessary. By 1921 cultivated land had shrunk to some 62 percent of the prewar area, and the harvest yield was only 37 percent of normal. We demand that handicraft production be authorized provided it does not utilize wage labor. Besides these there were many thousands of Latvian workers, mainly former farm laborers, who showed unexampled heroism on all fronts of the civil war. While there, they had two daughters. Photo: Underwood Archives / Contributor / Getty Images, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Lon Trotsky, Birth Year: 1879, Birth date: November 7, 1879, Birth City: Yanovka, Birth Country: Ukraine. Such is the basic mechanism of the revolution in all its stages. Kronstadt (Russian: , romanized: Kronshtadt, IPA: [krntat]) is a Russian port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of Saint Petersburg, located on Kotlin Island, 30 km (19 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, near the head of the Gulf of Finland.It is linked to the former Russian capital by a combination levee-causeway-seagate, the St Petersburg Dam, part of . While it was still in progress, the government announced the abolition of grain requisitions, replacing them with a tax in kind. During the 1930s, Stalin conducted political purges and named Trotsky, in absentia, a major conspirator and enemy of the people. That bitter winter saw Kronstadt, like most other cities in Russia, hungry and discontented. Most puerile of all is the argument that there was no uprising, that the sailors had made no threats, that they only seized the fortress and the battleships. Under the pressure of need and deprivation, the workers themselves were episodically divided into hostile camps, depending upon stronger or weaker ties with the village. Vicious fighting ensued throughout the city, and by March 18, the revolt was crushed. But after the decision was taken, I continued to remain in Moscow and took no part, direct or indirect, in the military operations. Secondly, Professor Grimm, the chief agent of the National Centre in Helsingfors and General Wrangel's official representative in Finland, stated to a colleague after the revolt had been crushed that if a new outbreak should occur then their group must not be caught unawares again. We demand the institution of mobile workers' control groups. second assault 527-1,412, a much higher number if we include the first assault. In his opinion, the introduction of the NEP one year earlier could have averted the Kronstadt uprising.