Let the workers of the whole world know that we, the de? fenders of Soviet Power, are guarding the conquests 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 authority.
Long live the Power of the Soviets!
VII. THE DEFEAT OF KRONSTADT 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 the 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 attem^pts to take the forti^ess 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 the Kronstadt Izvestia wrote: We did not want to shed the blood of our brothers, and we did not lire a 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 own 35 brothers sent to certain death by Communists who have grown fat at the expense of the people.
*** To your misfortune there broke a terrific snowstorm and black night 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 detachm^ents.
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 terrorised, 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 men, 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 36 for the whole of Russia. It cannot be that the Kronstadt explosion should fail to arouse 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 contiilued 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 Qf 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 kursantL 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, formerly Bolshevik naval Commissar and later dictator of defeated Kronstadt, "was worked out in minutest detail according to the directions of Commander^n^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 37 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. Commissar of the Baltic Fleet Kuzmin and Chairman of the Kronstadt Soviet Vassiliev, liberated by the Coni^ munists from jail, now participated in the hand=to4iand street fighting in fratricidal bloodshed. Till 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 razsirel (shooting).
On March 18 the Bolshevik GovernmAcnt and the Corn- munist 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 to be 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 of far 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: 'AH Power to the Soviets!"
38 AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD LESSONS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF KRONSTADT 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 realising the general character of the Bolsheviki, Kronstadt still had faith in the possibility of an amicable solution. It believed the Comimunist 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 popular self^ determination. The State has no soul, no principles. It has but one aim — to secure power and to 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 an uprising is conditioned in its resoluteness, energy, and aggressiveness. The rebels have on their side the sentim.ent 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 localised, for that mieans stagnation. It must broaden and develop. A rebellion that localises itself, plays the waiting policy, or puts itself on the defensive, is inevitably doomed to defeat.
In this regard, especially, Kronstadt repeated the fatal $trategic errors of the Paris Communards. The latter did not follow the advice of those v>rho favored an immediata attack on Versailles while the Government of Thiers was disorganised. They did not carry the revolution into the country. Neither the Paris workers of 1871 nor the Kron^ stadt sailors aimed to abolish the Government. The Com^^ munards 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 sailors 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* of wheat belonging to Kronstadt. A landing in Oranienbaum was feasible, the Bolsheviki having been taken by surprise and having 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.**, The same happened to the Paris Commune. When the logic of the fight forced upon them demonstrated the necessity of abolishing the Thiers regime 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.
*) A pood equals 40 Russian or about 36 English pounds.
*'^) The failure of Kronstadt to take Oranienbaum gave the Government an opportunity to strenghten the fortress with its trusted regiments, eiimi^: nate 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 fortress as a vantage point of attack against Kronstadt.
Among those executed in Oranienbaum were: Kolo^sov, division chief of the Red Navy airmen and chairman of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee just organised in Oranienbaum; Balabanov, secretary of the Committee, and Committee members Romanov, Vladimirov, etc. A. B.
40 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 sup^ press the republics of the Caucasus.
But the "triumph" of the Bolsheviki over Kronstadt held within itself the defeat of Bolshevism, It exposed the true character of the Communist dictatorship. The Communists 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 R.S.F.S.R.; and freedom of speech and press for the revolutionary parties.
The Tenth Al^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 the 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 con? cessions 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 of Bolshevism with its Party dictatorship, mad centralisation, 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 41 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 demons .strated that the Bolshevik regime is unmitigated tyranny and reaction, and that the Communist State is itseff 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 tht 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, alkforgiving 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, sol=* diers 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 42 PRISON MEMOIRS OF AN ANARCHIST By ALEXANDER BERKMAN Price $ 2.?
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION SERIES No.l THE RUSSIAN TRAGEDY (A Review and An Outlook) By ALEXANDER BERKMAN RUSSIAN REVOLUTION SERIES No. 2 THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND THE COMMUNIST PARTy Copies of the Russian Revolution Series can be had at: Max N,Maisel, Bookstore, 424 Grandest., New York, N.Y. Freie Arb^iter^Stimme, 48 Canal St., New York, N. Y. Lillian Kisliuk, 18^17 Kenyon St., Washington, D. C. Freedom Press, 127 Ossulston St., London, N. W. I, England Set up and printed for „Dcr Syndikalist", Berlin 0.34 1922 In compliance with Section 108 of the Copyright Revision Act of 1976, The Ohio State University Libraries has produced this facsimile on permanent/durable paper to replace the deteriorated original volume owned by the Libraries. Facsimile created by Acme Bookbinding, Charlestown, MA 2001 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence for Printed Library Materials, ANSIZ39.484992.
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