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An Anarchist FAQ - Why did the Petrograd workers not support Kronstadt?
For Trotskyists, the inaction of the Petrograd workers during the revolt is a significant factor in showing its "backward peasant" character. Trotsky, for example, argued that from "the class point of view" it is "extremely important to contrast the behaviour of Kronstadt to that of Petrograd in those critical days." He argues that the "uprising did not attract the Petrograd workers. It repelled them. The stratification proceeded along class lines. The workers immediately felt that the Kronstadt mutineers stood on the opposite side of the barricades -- and they supported the Soviet power. The political isolation of Kronstadt was the cause of its internal uncertainty and its military defeat." [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, pp. 90-1]
Firstly, it should be noted that Trotsky's claims in 1937 are at odds with his opinion during the crisis. In a cable dated March 5th, 1921, to a member of the Council of Labour and Defence Trotsky insisted that "only the seizure of Kronstadt will put an end to the political crisis in Petrograd." [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. 32] Thus, in 1921, Trotsky was well aware of the links between the Kronstadt revolt and the Petrograd strikes, seeing the destruction of the former as a means to defeating the latter. Simply put, the crushing of Kronstadt would give the rebel workers in Petrograd a clear message of what to expect if they persisted in their protests.
Secondly, needless to say, Trotsky's later arguments leave a lot to be desired. For example, he fails to note (to use Victor Serge's words -- see section 5) that the state and Communist Press "was positively berserk with lies." The press and radio campaign directed against Kronstadt stated that the revolt had been organised by foreign spies and was led by ex-Tsarist generals.
On 5th March the Petrograd Defence Committee put out a call to the insurgents, inviting them to surrender. It stated:
"You are being told fairy tales when they tell you that Petrograd is with you or that the Ukraine supports you. These are impertinent lies. The last sailor in Petrograd abandoned you when he learned that you were led by generals like Kozlovskv. Siberia and the Ukraine support the Soviet power. Red Petrograd laughs at the miserable efforts of a handful of White Guards and Socialist Revolutionaries." [cited by Mett, The Kronstadt Uprising, p. 50]
These lies would, of course, alienate many workers in Petrograd. Two hundred emissaries were sent from Kronstadt to distribute their demands but only a few avoided capture. The Party had brought the full weight of its propaganda machine to bear, lying about the revolt and those taking part in it. The government also placed a "careful watch" on the "trains from Petrograd to mainland points in the direction of Kronstadt to prevent any contact with the insurgents." [Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 140 and p. 141]
Unsurprising, in such circumstances many workers, soldiers and sailors would have been loath to support Kronstadt. Isolated from the revolt, the Petrograd workers had to reply on official propaganda (i.e. lies) and rumours to base any judgement on what was happening there. However, while this is a factor in the lack of active support, it is by no means the key one. This factor, of course, was state repression. Emma Goldman indicates the situation in Petrograd at the time:
"An exceptional state of martial law was imposed throughout the entire province of Petrograd, and no one except officials with special passes could leave the city now. The Bolshevik press launched a campaign of calumny and venom against Kronstadt, announcing that the sailors and soldiers had made common cause with the 'tsarist General Kozlovsky;' they were thereby declaring the Kronstadters outlaws." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p. 171]
Given what everyone knew what happened to people outlawed by the Bolsheviks, is it surprising that many workers in Petrograd (even if they knew they were being lied to) did not act? Moreover, the threat made against Kronstadt could be seen on the streets of Petrograd:
"On March 3 [the day after the revolt] the Petrograd Defence Committee, now vested with absolute power throughout the entire province, took stern measures to prevent any further disturbances. The city became a vast garrison, with troops patrolling in every quarter. Notices posted on the walls reminded the citizenry that all gatherings would be dispersed and those who resisted shot on the spot. During the day the streets were nearly deserted, and, with the curfew now set at 9 p.m., night life ceased altogether." [Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 142]
Berkman, an eyewitness to the repression, states that:
"The Petrograd committee of defence, 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 defence took up the systematic 'cleaning of the city.' Numerous workers, soldiers and sailors suspected of sympathising with Kronstadt, 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 Russian Tragedy, p. 71]
However, part of the Petrograd proletariat continued to strike during the Kronstadt events. Strikes were continuing in the biggest factories of Petrograd: Poutilov, Baltisky, Oboukhov, Nievskaia Manoufactura, etc. However, the Bolsheviks acted quickly shut down some of the factories and started the re-registration of the workers. For workers to be locked out of a factory meant to be "automatically deprived of their rations." [Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 41]
At the "Arsenal" factory, "the workers organised a mass meeting on 7th March, (the day the bombardment of Kronstadt began). This meeting adopted a resolution of the mutinous sailors! It elected a commission which was to go from factory to factory, agitating for a general strike." [Mett, Op. Cit., p. 52] The Cheka confirms this event, reporting to Zinoviev on March 8th that "[a]t a rally of workers of the Arsenal Plant a resolution was passed to join the Kronstadt uprising. The general meeting had elected a delegation to maintain contact with Kronstadt." This delegation had already been arrested. This was a common practice and during this period the Cheka concentrated its efforts on the leaders and on disrupting communication: all delegates to other workplaces, all Mensheviks and SRs who could be found, all speakers at rallies were being arrested day after day. On the day the Bolsheviks attacked Kronstadt (March 7th) the Cheka reported that it was launching "decisive actions against the workers." [quoted by Brovkin, Behind the Front Lines of the Civil War, p. 396]
These "decisive actions" involved a "massive purge of Petrograd factories and plants." The Communists "suppressed the workers' uprising in Petrograd in the first days of March." Unlike the Kronstadt sailors, the workers did not have weapons and "were essentially defenceless vis-a-vis the Cheka." [Brovkin, Op. Cit., p. 396]
The state of siege was finally lifted on the 22nd of March, five days after the crushing of Kronstadt.
In these circumstances, is it surprising that the Petrograd workers did not join in the rebellion?
Moreover, the Petrograd workers had just experienced the might of the Bolshevik state. As we noted in section 2, the events in Kronstadt were in solidarity with the strike wave in Petrograd at the end of February. Then the Bolsheviks had repressed the workers with "arrests, the use of armed patrols in the streets and in the factories, and the closing and re-registration of an enterprise labour force." [Mary McAuley, Op. Cit., p. 409]
A three-man Defence Committee was formed and Zinoviev "proclaimed martial law" on February 24th (this was later "vested with absolute power throughout the entire province" on March 3rd). [Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 39 and p. 142] As part of this process, they had to rely on the kursanty (Communist officer cadets) as the local garrisons had been caught up the general ferment and could not be relied upon to carry out the government's orders. Hundreds of kursanty were called in from neighbouring military academies to patrol the city. "Overnight Petrograd became an armed camp. In every quarter pedestrians were stopped and their documents checked . . . the curfew [was] strictly enforced." The Petrograd Cheka made widespread arrests. [Avrich, Op. Cit., pp. 46-7]
As can be seen, Trotsky is insulting the intelligence of his readers by arguing that the lack of support in Petrograd for Kronstadt reflected "class lines." Indeed, by failing to mention (to use Emma Goldman's words) "the campaign of slander, lies and calumny against the sailors" conducted by the Soviet Press (which "fairly oozed poison against the sailors") or that "Petrograd was put under martial law" Trotsky, quite clearly, "deliberately falsifies the facts." [Trotsky Protests Too Much]
Ida Mett states the obvious:
"Here again Trotsky is saying things which are quite untrue. Earlier on we showed how the wave of strikes had started in Petrograd and how Kronstadt had followed suit. It was against the strikers of Petrograd that the Government had to organise a special General Staff: the Committee of Defence. The repression was first directed against the Petrograd workers and against their demonstrations, by the despatch of armed detachments of Koursantys. "But the workers of Petrograd had no weapons. They could not defend themselves as could the Kronstadt sailors. The military repression directed against Kronstadt certainly intimidated the Petrograd workers. The demarcation did not take place 'along class lines' but according to the respective strengths of the organs of repression. The fact that the workers of Petrograd did not follow those of Kronstadt does not prove that they did not sympathise with them. Nor, at a later date, when the Russian proletariat failed to follow the various 'oppositions' did this prove that they were in agreement with Stalin! In such instances it was a question of the respective strengths of the forces confronting one another." [Mett, Op. Cit., p. 73]
So, unlike the Kronstadt sailors, the Petrograd workers did not have arms and so could not take part in an "armed revolt" against the well armed Red Army unless part of that force sided with the strikers. The Communist leaders recognised this danger, with untrustworthy troops being confined to their barracks and in place of regular troops they had shipped in kursanty (they had obviously learned the lessons of the 1917 February revolution!). Ultimately, the city was "appeased by concessions and cowed by the presence of troops." [Avrich, Op. Cit., p. 200]
Not that this was the first time Trotsky confused force with class. In his infamous work Terrorism and Communism he defended the fact of Communist Party dictatorship (i.e. "of having substituted for the dictatorship of the Soviets the dictatorship of our party"). He argued that "it can be said with complete justice that the dictatorship of the Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party" and that there is "no substitution at all" when the "power of the party" replaces that of the working class. The rule of the party "has afforded to the Soviets the possibility of becoming transformed from shapeless parliaments of labour into the apparatus of the supremacy of labour." [Terrorism and Communism, p. 109] He continued by arguing:
"But where is your guarantee, certain wise men ask us, that it is just your party that expresses the interests of historical development? Destroying or driving underground the other parties, you have thereby prevented their political competition with you, and consequently you have deprived yourselves of the possibility of testing your line of action. "This idea is dictated by a purely liberal conception of the course of the revolution. In a period in which all antagonisms assume an open character, and the political struggle swiftly passes into a civil war, the ruling party has sufficient material standard by which to test its line of action, without the possible circulation of Menshevik papers. Noske crushes the Communists, but they grow. We have suppressed the Mensheviks and the S.R.s-and they have disappeared. This criterion is sufficient for us." [Op. Cit., pp. 109-10]
An interesting criterion, to say the least. The faulty logic he displayed with regards to Petrograd and Kronstadt had a long history. By this logic Hitler expressed the "interests of historical development" when the German Communists and Trotskyists "disappeared" by leaps and bounds. Similarly, the Trotskyists in Russia "disappeared" under Stalin. Is this a Trotskyist justification of Stalinism? All it proves is the power of the repressive system -- just as the "passivity" of the Petrograd workers during the Kronstadt revolt indicates the power of the Bolshevik regime rather than the class basis of the Kronstadt uprising.
On this theme, we can see the depths which Trotskyists go to re-write history from Pierre Frank's "Introduction" to the work Kronstadt. He decides to quote Paul Avrich's work (after, of course, warning the reader that Avrich "is not a Bolshevik or a Trotskyist" and his "political features are blurred"). Frank states that Avrich "done his work conscientiously, without skipping over the facts." It is a shame that the same cannot be said of Frank! Frank states that Avrich "discusses the strikes in Petrograd preceding Kronstadt and comes to the following conclusion":
"For many intellectuals and workers, moreover, the Bolsheviks, with all their faults, were still the most effective barrier to a White resurgence and the downfall of the revolution. "For these reasons, the strikes in Petrograd were fated to lead a brief existence. Indeed, they ended almost as suddenly as they had begun, never having reached the point of armed revolt against the regime." [Lenin and Trotsky, Op. Cit., pp. 24-35]
It is the "moreover" in the first paragraph that gives the game away. Avrich lists a few more reasons than the one listed by Frank. Here is what Avrich actually lists as the reasons for the end of the strike wave:
"after several days of tense excitement, the Petrograd disturbances petered out . . . The concessions had done their work, for more than anything else it was cold and hunger which had stimulated popular disaffection. Yet there is no denying that the application of military force and the widespread arrests, not to speak of the tireless propaganda waged by the authorities had been indispensable in restoring order. Particularly impressive in this regard was the discipline shown by the local party organisation. Setting aside their internal disputes, the Petrograd Bolsheviks swiftly closed ranks and proceeded to carry out the unpleasant task of repression with efficiency and dispatch . . ."Then, too, the collapse of the movement would not have come so soon but for the utter demoralisation of Petrograd's inhabitants. The workers were simply too exhausted to keep up any sustained political activity . . . What is more, they lacked effective leadership and a coherent program of action. In the past these had been supplied by the radical intelligentsia . . . [but they] were themselves in no condition to lend the workers any meaningful support, let alone active guidance . . . they now felt too weary and terrorised . . . to raise their voices in opposition. With most of their comrades in prison or exile, and some already executed, few of the survivors were willing to risk the same fate, especially when the odds against them were so overwhelming and when the slightest protest might deprive their families of their rations. For many intellectuals and workers, moreover, the Bolsheviks, with all their faults, were still the most effective barrier to a White resurgence and the downfall of the revolution.
"For these reasons, the strikes in Petrograd were fated to lead a brief existence. Indeed, they ended almost as suddenly as they had begun, never having reached the point of armed revolt against the regime." [Paul Avrich, Kronstadt, pp. 49-51]
As can be seen, Frank "skips over" most of Avrich's argument and the basis of his conclusion. Indeed, what Frank calls Avrich's "conclusion" cannot be understood by providing, as Frank does, the last reason Avrich gives for it.
The dishonesty is clear, if not unexpected nor an isolated case. John Rees, to use another example, states that the revolt was "preceded by a wave of serious but quickly resolved strikes." [Rees, Op. Cit., p. 61] No mention that the strikes were "resolved" by force nor that the Kronstadt revolt was not only "preceded" by the strikes but was directly inspired by them, was in solidarity with them and raised many of the same demands!
Similarly, he argues that the Kronstadters' "insistence that they were fighting for a 'third revolution', freedom of expression and for 'soviets without parties' [although, in fact, they never raised that slogan and so we have to wonder who Rees is quoting here] has convinced many historians that this revolt was fundamentally distinct from the White Rebellions." But this, apparently, is not the case as "one must be careful to analyse the difference between the conscious aims of the rebels and the possible outcome of their actions. The Bolshevik regime still rested on the shattered remnants of the working class. The Kronstadt sailors' appeals to the Petrograd workers had met with little or no response." [Op. Cit., p. 63]
One has to wonder what planet Rees is on. After all, if the Bolsheviks had rested on the "shattered remnants of the working class" then they would not have had to turn Petrograd into an armed camp, repress the strikes, impose martial law and arrest militant workers. The Kronstadt sailors appeals "met with little or no response" due to the Bolshevik coercion exercised in those fateful days. To not mention the Bolshevik repression in Petrograd is to deliberately deceive the reader. That the Kronstadt demands would have met with strong response in Petrograd can be seen from the actions of the Bolsheviks (who did not rest upon the workers but rather arrested them). Given that the Kronstadt demands simply reflected those raised by the Petrograd strikers themselves we can safely say that Rees is talking nonsense (see section 4). Moreover, the sailors' resolution had meet with strong support from the workers of Kronstadt. Thus Rees' "class analysis" of the Kronstadt revolt is pathetic and has no bearing to the reality of the situation in Petrograd nor to the history of the revolt itself.
As can be seen, any attempt to use the relative inaction of the Petrograd workers as evidence of the class nature of the revolt has to do so by ignoring all the relevant facts of the situation. This can go so far as to selectively quote from academic accounts to present a radically false conclusion to that of the misused author's.
