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An Anarchist FAQ - Was the Kronstadt revolt a White plot?
At the time, the Bosheviks portrayed the Kronstadt revolt as a White plot, organised by the counter-revolution (see last section for full details). In particular, they portrayed the revolt as a conspiracy, directed by foreign spies and executed by their SR and White Guardist allies.
For example, Lenin argued on March 8th that "White Guard generals were very active" at Kronstadt. "There is ample proof of this. Two weeks before the Kronstadt events, the Paris newspapers reported a mutiny at Kronstadt. It is quite clear that it is the work of Social Revolutionaries and White Guard emigres." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 44]
Trotsky, on March 16th, made the same point, arguing that "in a number of foreign newspapers . . . news of an uprising in Kronstadt appeared as far back as the middle of February . . . How [to] explain this? Very simply . . . The Russian counterrevolutionary organisers promised to stage a mutiny at a propitious moment, while the impatient yellow and financial press write about it as an already accomplished fact." [Op. Cit., p. 68]
This appears to be the greatest "evidence" for Lenin and Trotsky as regards the White-Guardist nature of the revolt. Indeed, Trotsky on the "basis of the dispatch . . . sent a warning to Petrograd to my naval colleagues." [Ibid.]
However, to see the truth of these claims it is simply a case of looking at how the Bolsheviks reacted to this announcement of an uprising in Kronstadt. They did nothing. As the Trotskyist editors of a book justifying the repression note, the "Red Army command was caught unprepared by the rebellion." [Op. Cit., p. 6] J.G. Wright, in his defence of Trotsky's position (a defence recommended by Trotsky himself), acknowledged that the "Red Army command" was "[c]aught off guard by the mutiny." [Op. Cit., p. 123] This clearly shows how little weight the newspaper reports were held before the rebellion. Of course, during and after the rebellion was a different matter and they quickly became a focal point for Bolshevik smears.
Moreover, as proof of a White plot, this evidence is pathetic. As Ida Mett argued out, the "publication of false news about Russia was nothing exceptional. Such news was published before, during and after the Kronstadt events. . . To base an accusation on a 'proof' of this kind is inadmissible and immoral." [Mett, The Kronstadt Uprising, p. 76]
Even Trotsky admitted that "the imperialist press . . . prints . . . a great number of fictitious reports about Russia" but maintained that the reports on Kronstadt were examples of "forecasts" of "attempts at overturns in specific centres of Soviet Russia" (indeed, the "journalistic agents of imperialism only 'forecast' that which is entrusted for execution to other agents of this very imperialism."). Lenin also noted, in an article entitled "The Campaign of Lies", that "the West European press [had] indulged in such an orgy of lies or engaged in the mass production of fantastic inventions about Soviet Russia in the last two weeks" and listed some of them (such as "Petrograd and Moscow are in the hands of the insurgents"). [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, p. 69, p. 50 and p. 51]
Yet this same press can be used as evidence for a White conspiracy in Kronstadt? Unsurprisingly, as Mett notes, "[i]n 1938 Trotsky himself was to drop this accusation." [Mett, Op. Cit., p. 76] Little wonder, given its pathetic nature -- although this does not stop his loyal follower John G. Wright from asserting these reports are the "irrefutable facts" of the "connection between the counterrevolution and Kronstadt." [Lenin and Trotsky, Op. Cit., p. 115] The question of why the counterrevolutionary plotters would given their enemies advance notice of their plans never crossed his mind.
As can be seen, at the time no evidence was forthcoming that the Whites organised or took part in the revolt. As Ida Mett argues:
"If, at the time the Bolshevik Government had proofs of these alleged contacts between Kronstadt and the counter-revolutionaries why did it not try the rebels publicly? Why did it not show the working masses of Russia the 'real' reasons for the uprising? If this wasn't done it was because no such proofs existed." [Mett, Op. Cit., p. 77]
Unsurprisingly, the first soviet investigation into the revolt came to the conclusion that it was spontaneous. Iakov Agranov, a special plenipotentiary of the Secret-Operation Department of the Vecheka (and later to become its head), was sent the presidium of that body to Kronstadt soon after the crushing of the uprising. His mandate was "to ascertain the role of various parties and groups in the start and development of the uprising and the ties of its organisers and inspirers with counter-revolutionary parties and organisations operating both in and outside Soviet Russia." He produced a report on the 5th of April, 1921, which expressed his considered opinion that the "uprising was entirely spontaneous in origin and drew into its maelstrom almost the entire population and the garrison of the fortress. . . the investigation failed to show the outbreak of the mutiny was preceded by the activity of any counter-revolutionary organisation at work among the fortress's command or that it was the work of the entente. The entire course of the movement speaks against that possibility. Had the mutiny been the work of some secret organisation which predated its outbreak, then that organisation would not have planned it for a time when the reserves of fuel and provisions were hardly sufficient for two weeks and when the thawing of the ice was still far off." He notes that the "masses" in Kronstadt "were fully aware of the spontaneity of their movement." [quoted by Israel Getzler, "The Communist Leaders' Role in the Kronstadt Tragedy of 1921 in the Light of Recently Published Archival Documents", Revolutionary Russia, pp. 24-44, Vol. 15, No. 1, June 2002, p. 25]
Agranov's conclusion was also that of Aleksei Nikolaev's, who, as chairman of the Extraordinary Troika of the First and Second Special Section, was given the double assignment of "the punishment of the mutineers and the unmasking of all the organisations that prepared and led the mutiny." He reported on April 20th, 1921, that "in spite of all efforts we have been unable to discover the presence of any organisation and to seize any agents." [quoted by Getzler, Op. Cit., p. 26] Ironically enough, a prominent SR leader and head of the SR Administrative Centre in Finland wrote a letter on the 18th of March that stated the revolt was "absolutely spontaneous," that the "movement began spontaneously, without any organisation and quite unexpectedly. After all, a month later, Kronstadt would have been inaccessible to the Bolsheviks and a hundred times more dangerous to them." [quoted by Getzler, Op. Cit., pp. 25-6]
This did not stop the Bolsheviks reiterating the official line that the revolt was a White plot, with SR help (nor has it stopped their latter-day supporters repeating these lies since). For example, Bukharin was still pedalling the official lies in July 1921, stating that, as regards Kronstadt, the "documents which have since been brought to light show clearly that the affair was instigated by purely White Guard centres." [contained in In Defence of the Russian Revolution, Al Richardson (ed.), p. 192] It is redundant to note that said "documents" were not "brought to light" then or since.
It should be noted here that the Bolsheviks were quite willing to invent "evidence" of a conspiracy. Trotsky, for example, raised, on the 24th of March 1921, the possibility of a "Political Trial of Kronstadters and Makhnovites." This show trial would be part of the "struggle" against "anarchism (Kronstadt and Makhno)." This was "presently an important task" and so it "seems . . . appropriate to organise trials of Kronstadters . . . and of Makhnovites." The "effect of the reports and the speeches of the prosecutor etcetera would be far more powerful than the effects of brochures and leaflets about . . . anarchism." [quoted by Getzler, Op. Cit., pp. 39] While Trotsky's show trial was never staged, the fact that the idea was taken seriously can be seen from the invented summaries of the testimonies of three men considered by the Bolsheviks as ringleaders of the revolt. Perhaps the fact that the three (Kozlovsky, Petrichenko, Putilin) managed to escape to Finland ensured that Trotsky's idea was never carried out. Stalin, of course, utilised the "powerful" nature of such trials in the 1930s.
Decades later historian Paul Avrich did discover an unsigned hand written manuscript labelled "Top Secret" and entitled "Memorandum on the Question of Organising an Uprising in Kronstadt." Trotskyist Pierre Frank considered it "so convincing" that he "reproduced it in its entirety" to prove a White Conspiracy existed behind the Kronstadt revolt. Indeed, he considers it as an "indisputable" revelation and that Lenin and Trotsky "were not mistaken in their analysis of Kronstadt." [Lenin and Trotsky, Op. Cit., p. 26 and p. 32]
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 report notes that "among the sailors, numerous and unmistakable signs of mass dissatisfaction with the existing order can be noticed." Indeed, the "Memorandum" states that "one must not forget that even of the French Command and the Russian anti-Bolshevik organisations do not take part in the preparation and direction of the uprising, a revolt in Kronstadt will take place all the same during the coming spring, but after a brief period of success it will be doomed to failure." [quoted by Avrich, Kronstadt 1921, p. 235 and p. 240]
As Avrich notes, an "underlying assumption of the Memorandum is that the revolt would not occur until after the springtime thaw, when the ice had melted and Kronstadt was immune from an invasion from the mainland." [Kronstadt 1921, pp. 106-7] Voline stated the obvious when he argued that the revolt "broke out spontaneously" for if it "had been the result of a plan conceived and prepared in advance, it would certainly not have occurred at the beginning of March, the least favourable time. A few weeks later, and Kronstadt, freed of ice, would have become an almost impregnable fortress . . . The greatest opportunity of Bolshevik government was precisely the spontaneity of the movement and the absence of any premeditation, of any calculation, in the action of the sailors." [The Unknown Revolution, p. 487] As can be seen, the "Memorandum" also recognised this need for the ice to thaw and it was the basic assumption behind it. In other words, the revolt was spontaneous and actually undercut the assumptions behind the "Memorandum."
Avrich rejects the idea that the "Memorandum" explains the revolt:
"Nothing has come to light to show that the Secret Memorandum was ever put into practice or that any links had existed between the emigres and the sailors before the revolt. On the contrary, the rising bore the earmarks of spontaneity . . . there was little in the behaviour of the rebels to suggest any careful advance preparation. Had there been a prearranged plan, surely the sailors would have waited a few weeks longer for the ice to melt . . . The rebels, moreover, allowed Kalinin [a leading Communist] to return to Petrograd, though he would have made a valuable hostage. Further, no attempt was made to take the offensive . . . Significant too, is the large number of Communists who took part in the movement. . . "The Sailors needed no outside encouragement to raise the banner of insurrection. . . Kronstadt was clearly ripe for a rebellion. What set it off were not the machinations of emigre conspirators and foreign intelligence agents but the wave of peasant risings throughout the country and the labour disturbances in neighbouring Petorgrad. And as the revolt unfolded, it followed the pattern of earlier outbursts against the central government from 1905 through the Civil War." [Op. Cit., pp. 111-2]
He explicitly argues that while the National Centre had "anticipated" the revolt and "laid plans to help organise it," they had "no time to put these plans into effect." The "eruption occurred too soon, several weeks before the basic conditions of the plot . . . could be fulfilled." It "is not true," he stresses, "that the emigres had engineering the rebellion." The revolt was "a spontaneous and self-contained movement from beginning to end." [Op. Cit., pp. 126-7]
Moreover, whether the Memorandum played a part in the revolt can be seen from the reactions of the White "National Centre" to the uprising. Firstly, they failed to deliver aid to the rebels nor get French aid to them. 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. Avrich also notes that the revolt "caught the emigres off balance" and that "[n]othing . . . had been done to implement the Secret Memorandum, and the warnings of the author were fully borne out." [Paul Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 212 and p. 123]
If Kronstadt was a White conspiracy then how could the organisation of the conspiracy have been caught unawares?
Clearly, the attempts of certain later-day Trotskyists to justify and prove their heroes slanders against Kronstadt are pathetic. No evidence of a White-Guardist plot existed until 1970 when Paul Avrich produced his study of the revolt and the single document in question clearly does not support the claim that the Whites organised the revolt. Rather, the Whites aimed to use a sailors "uprising" to further their cause, an "uprising" which they predicted would occur in the spring (with or without them). The predicted revolt did take place, but earlier than expected and was not a product of a conspiracy. Indeed, the historian who discovered this document explicitly argues that it proves nothing and that the revolt was spontaneous in nature.
Therefore, the claim that Kronstadt was a White plot cannot be defended with anything but assertions. No evidence exists to back up such claims.
