The February revolution caught the Bolshevik Party utterly off guard.

As the revolution
deepened, the entire Bolshevik premise that workers could not attain a revolutionary
consciousness on their own proved completely wrong. By their own admission, workers had
proved to be far more revolutionary than the Party and were, in fact, closer to anarchism in
practice than Marxism.

But the N.E.P. unleashed the capitalist elements in the country just at a time when the one
party dictatorship was leaving the proletariat and working peasants without means of defence
against these capitalist forces. "The class exerting the dictatorship is in fact deprived of the
most elementary political rights" proclaimed the Worker's Truth, an oppositional communist
group in 1922. The Worker's Group, another oppositlonal tendency, characterised the
situation as follows: "The working class is totally deprived of rights, the trade unions being a
blind instrument in the hands of the functionaries".

We have dwelt on these quotations to show that Rosa Luxembourg, in her statements about
the need for democracy, went much further than the Kronstadt rebels. They restricted their
comments about democracy to matters of interest to the proletariat and to the working
peasantry. Moreover Rosa Luxemburg formulated her criticisms of the Russian Revolution in
1918, in a period of full civil war, whereas the Petropavlovsk resolution was voted at a time
when the armed struggle had virtually come to an end.

Would anyone dare accuse Rosa, on the basis of her criticisms, of having been in collusion
with the international bourgeoisie? Why then are the demands of the Kronstadt sailors
denounced as 'dangerous' and as inevitably leading to the counterrevolution? Has not the
subsequent evolution of events amply vindicated both the Kronstadt rebels and Rosa
Luxemburg? Was Rosa Luxemburg not right when she asserted that the task of the working
class was to exercise working class power and not the dictatorship of a party or of a clique?
For Rosa Luxemburg working class power was defined as "the achievement in a contest of the
widest discussion, of the most active and unlimited participation of the popular masses in an
unrestricted democracy."

When putting forward their democratic demands, the Kronstadt rebels had probably never
heard of the writings of Rosa Luxemburg. What they had heard of, however, was the first
Constitution of the Soviet Republic, voted on July 10, 1918, by the 5th All Russian Congress
of Soviets. Article 13, 14, 15 and 16 of the Constitution assured all workers of certain
democratic rights (freedom of worship, freedom of assembly, freedom of union, freedom of
the press). These articles sought to prevent the allocation of special privileges to any specific
group or Party (articles 22 and 23).

The same Constitution proclaimed that no worker could be deprived of the right to vote or of
the right to stand as a candidate, provided he satisfied the conditions stipulated in articles 64
and 65, that is to say provided he did not exploit the labour of others or live off income other
than that which he had earned.

The central demand of the Kronstadt insurrection—all power to the Soviets and not to the
Party)—was in fact based on an article of the Constitution. This proclaimed that all central
and local power would henceforth be precisely in the hands of the soviets!

The ideological crisis that the events in Russia caused for the Bolshevik Party saw them
oscillating back and forth between different positions throughout 1917 and into 1918. Initially
the Bolsheviks supported the idea of a parliamentary democracy as the maximum goal. As
workers and peasants began carrying out the socialisation of land, workers’ self-management;
and demanding all power to thesoviets, some Bolsheviks were driven in a more libertarian
direction. Even Lenin flirted with council democracy [10]. But overall Bolshevik theory
remained unchanged, so, while now calling for “all for power to the soviets,” the Bolsheviks
tried to take sole control of the soviets as a step to state power [11].

In October 1917, the Bolsheviks formed an alliance with various factions – such as anarchists and Left
Socialist Revolutionaries – to overthrow the Provisional Government. A Military Revolutionary
Committee, which was dominated by the Bolsheviks, was set up to co-ordinate these efforts. The
anarchists that had become involved in this did so in the belief that the Bolsheviks would transfer all
power to the soviets, which they hoped would become organs of self-governance that would see the
working class and peasants ushering in stateless socialism [12]. These hopes were soon to be dashed.

Thus, in April 1918 anarchists came under attack from the Cheka. Various anarchist centres were
raided and newspapers shut. During these raids, over 40 anarchists were killed and hundreds more
taken prisoner. This, however, was merely the start of the Cheka’s reign of terror: it would grow to
over 250 000 members, establish concentration camps, and play a key role in silencing any and all
opposition to the Bolshevik party – including killing thousands of workers, peasants and
revolutionaries [14]. Indeed, Lenin made it clear that any real opposition would not be tolerated
when he said that the Party reserves “state power for ourselves, and for ourselves alone". [15]

By early 1918, the Bolsheviks faced their first major challenge when they were roundly defeated in
elections to urban soviets. From that point on the soviets were purged, manipulated or dissolved;
soviet democracy was shut down because it threatened the Party. The Bolsheviks turned the soviets
into rubber stamps – packed with handpicked stooges – for Party orders from above. Likewise,
freedom of speech was systematically suppressed. Trotsky would go on to justify such measures by
condemning those who “put the right of workers to elect their own representatives above the Party,
thus challenging the right of the Party to affirm its dictatorship even when the dictatorship comes
into conflict with the passing moods of the workers’ democracy” [16].
In the cities, waves of strikes broke out in 1918, 1919 and 1921. Amongst the working class,
resistance to one-man management was widespread. By 1919 strikes had taken place in cities like
Moscow against the repressive conditions in the factories and unpaid wages. In these cases, the
Cheka dealt with the strikers harshly [22]. Perhaps the fiercest resistance by the working class to
Bolshevik rule occurred between 1920 and 1921 in Petrograd. The strikes in Petrograd were driven
mainly by the fact that workers were being driven into starvation. In Petrograd, illegal food markets
existed, which were mainly controlled by Bolshevik Party members and soldiers [23]. Many people
used these illegal markets to source food as the state ration system was unreliable and inadequate.
In the summer of 1920, Zinoviev issued a decree forbidding any kind of commercial transactions. The
result was that the majority of the people of Petrograd were plunged into starvation, as the state
apparatus was in no position to supply food to the city. Workers throughout the city went out on
strike demanding food supplies. Sections of the workers also demanded freedom of speech and for
working class political prisoners to be released. The Bolsheviks responded with tyranny: a curfew was
put in place, martial law was declared, all meetings were banned, and hundreds of striking workers
arrested. Hearing about the strike and the plight of workers, the Kronstadt sailors decided to send a
delegation to Petrograd to investigate the situation for themselves [24].

The Kronstadt delegation was horrified by the state repression of striking workers that they
found. The Kronstadt sailors had remained loyal to the Bolshevik regime throughout the Civil
War, but once it had ended they felt that the goals of 1917 – land, bread, and peace through
soviet democracy – were being trampled by the Bolsheviks. The old excuse for Bolshevik
repression, the Civil War, made no sense: the war had effectively ended in November 1920.

The Bolsheviks, then in congress, were busy suppressing Party dissidents infected with an
“anarcho-syndicalist deviation.” And Lenin and Trotsky knew full well that soviet democracy
would end Bolshevik power. They believed an end to the Bolsheviks as the sole power would
mean an end to the revolution – although the truth was that Bolshevik actions had already
destroyed the aims and gains of the 1917 Revolution. When informed of the Kronstadters’
demands, the Soviet state immediately responded by threatening them. Trotsky demanded that
the Kronstadters, who had taken the step of setting up an independent soviet once their
demands had been soundly rebuffed, surrender or be shot down like partridges [27]. The state
also took measures to isolate Kronstadt from the Petrograd workers, by providing emergency
rations in the city – in a desperate bid to stunt the widespread discontent that existed [28]. The
Bolshevik propaganda machine also went into overdrive to try and convince workers across
Russia that the Kronstadters were counter-revolutionaries and not socialists. On the eve of the
Red Army invasion, the Kronstadters were hoping that workers would join with them, and
that a Third Revolution would take place; not just to end capitalism but also the authoritarian
state in Russia. This unfortunately was a forlorn hope as on the 6th of March the first attacks
on Kronstadt by the Red Army began. Initially, however, the troops refused to attack
Kronstadt. In response, the Party sent 3 000 Communist cadre to persuade them. When that
failed, more compliant troops were brought in, and many of the soldiers were forced to march
on Kronstadt under the threat of death [29].
A military group assigned to the special company dealing with discipline also issued a
declaration:

'We, the undersigned, joined the Party believing it to express the wishes of the working
masses. In fact the Party has proved itself an executioner of workers and peasants. This is
revealed quite clearly by recent events in Petrograd. These events show up the face of the
Party leaders. The recent broadcasts from Moscow show clearly that the Party leaders are
prepared to resort to any means in order to retain power.

'We ask that henceforth, we no longer be considered Party members. We rally to the call
issued by the Kronstadt garrison in its resolution of 2nd. March. We invite other comrades
who have become aware of the error of their ways, publicly to recognise the fact.

The Communist Party members in the 'Rif' fort published the following resolution:

'During the last three years, many greedy careerists have flocked to our Party. This has given
rise to bureaucracy and has gravely hampered the struggle for economic reconstruction.

'Our Party has always faced up to the problem of the struggle against the enemies of the
proletariat and of the working masses. We publicly declare that we intend to continue in the
future our defence of the rights secured by the working class. We will allow no White Guard
to take advantage of this difficult situation confronting the Republic of Soviets. At the first
attempt directed against its power we will know how to retaliate.

'We fully accept the authority of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which is setting
itself the objective of creating soviets genuinely representing the proletarian and working
masses.

'Long live the power of the Soviets, the real defenders of working class rights.

'The Defence Committee an announces that it has arrested and imprisoned the families of the
sailors as hostages for the safety of communist comrades arrested by the Kronstadt mutineers.
We refer specifically to the safety of Fleet Commissar Kouzmin, and Vassiliev, President of
the Kronstadt Soviet. If a hair of their heads is touched, the hostages will pay with their lives'.

('Izvestia' of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, 5th. March 1921).

'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. You are surrounded on all sides. A few hours more will lapse and then you will he
compelled to surrender. Kronstadt has neither bread nor fuel. If you insist, we will shoot you like
partridges.

In reply to these threats from Petrograd, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee Issued a
final appeal.

'TO ALL, TO ALL, TO ALL.

Comrades, workers, red soldiers and sailors. Here in Kronstadt we know full well how much
you and your wives and your children are suffering under the iron rule of the Party. We have
overthrown the Party dominated Soviet. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee is today
starting elections to a new Soviet. It will be freely elected, and it will reflect the wishes of the
whole working population, and of the garrison--and not just those of a handful of Party
members.

'Our cause is just. We stand for the power of the Soviets, not for that of the Party. We stand
for freely elected representatives of the toiling masses. Deformed Soviets, dominated by the
Party, have remained deaf to our pleas. Our appeals have been answered with bullets.

'The workers' patience is becoming exhausted. So now they are seeking to pacify you with
crumbs. On Zinoviev's orders the militia barrages have been withdrawn. Moscow has
allocated ten million gold roubles for the purchase abroad of food stuffs and other articles of
first necessity. But we know that the Petrograd proletariat will not be bought over in this way.
Over the heads of the Party, we hold out to you the fraternal hand of revolutionary Kronstadt.

'Comrades, you are being deceived. And truth is being distorted by the basest of calumnies.

'Comrades, don't allow yourselves to be misled.

'In Kronstadt, power is in the hands of the sailors, of the red soldiers and of the revolutionary
workers. It is not in the hands of white Guards commanded by General Kozlovsky, as
Moscow Radio Iyingly asserts.

'Signed: The Provisional Revolutionary Committee'.

The Bolsheviks' aim had been achieved. The proletariat of Petrograd and of the other
industrial cities was in a state of confusion. The Kronstadt sailors, who had been hoping for
the support of the whole of working class Russia, remained isolated, confronting a
Government determined to annihilate them, whatever the cost.
During the afternoon of 3rd. March, the Revolutionary Committee had met in conference
together with certain military specialists. A Military Defence Committee was set up which
prepared a plan to defend the fortress. But when the military advisers proposed an assault in
the direction of Oranienbaum (where there were food stocks, at Spassatelnaia), the
Provisional Revolutionary Committee refused. It was not putting its faith in the military
capacity of the sailors; but in the moral support of the whole of proletarian Russia. Until the
first shot had been fired, the men of Kronstadt refused to believe that the Government would
militarily attack them. This is no doubt why the Provisional Revolutionary Committee had not
set out to prevent the approach of the Red Army by breaking the ice around the foot of the
fortress. For much the same reasons, fortified barrages were not set up along the probable line
of attack.

Kronstadt was right. Militarily they could not win. At best, they could have held a fortnight.
This might have been important, for once the ice had melted, Kronstadt could have become a
real fortress, capable of defending itself. Nor must we forget that their human reserves were
infinitesimal, compared with the numbers the Red Army could throw into battle.

'I consider it my revolutionary duty to clarify you as to the state of affairs on the northern
sector. It is impossible to send the Army into a second attack on the forts. I have already
spoken to Comrades Lachevitch, Avrov and Trotsky about the morale of the Koursantys
(cadet officers, deemed most fit for battle). I have to report the following tendencies. The men
wish to know the demands of Kronstadt. They want to send delegates to Kronstadt. The
number of political commissars in this sector is far from sufficient'.

Army morale was also revealed in the case of the 79th. Brigade of the 27th Omsk Division.
The Division comprised three regiments. It had shown its fighting capacities in the struggle
against Koltchak. On 12th. March, the division was brought to the Kronstadt front. The
Orchane regiment refused to fight against Kronstadt. The following day, in the two other
regiments of the same division, the soldiers organised impromptu meetings where they
discussed what attitude to take. Two of the regiments had to be disarmed by force, and the
'revolutionary' tribunal posed heavy sentences.

There were many similar cases. Not only were the soldiers unwilling to fight against their
class brothers, but they were not prepared to fight on the ice in the month of March. Units had
been brought in from other regions of the country, where by mid March the ice was melting
already. They had little confidence in the solidity of the Baltic ice. Those who had taken part
in the first assault, had seen that the shells from Kronstadt were opening up enormous holes in
its surface, in which the unfortunate Government troops were being engulfed. These were
hardly encouraging scenes. All this contributed to the failure of the first assaults against
Kronstadt.

Party organisations throughout the country were mobilised. Intensive propaganda was carried out
among the troops in the rear. The human and material resources available to the Government were
far greater than those available to Kronstadt. Trains were daily bringing new troops to Petrograd.
Many were being sent from the Kirghiz and Bachkir lands (i.e., were composed of men as far
removed as possible from the 'Kronstadt frame of mind'). As to the defenders of Kronstadt, their
forces were not only diminishing numerically (through losses sustained in fighting), but they were
more and more exhausted. Badly clad and half starving, the Kronstadt rebels remained at their guns,
almost without relief, for just over a week. At the end of this period, many of them could hardly
stand.

Aware of these facts and having taken all necessary measures in relation to organisation,
supplies and improvement in morale Toukhatchevsky, commander of the 7th. Army, issued
his famous proclamation of 15th. March. He ordered that Kronstadt be taken by all out assault
in the night of 16th-17th March. Entire regiments of the 7th. Army were equipped with hand
grenades, white blouses, shears for cutting barbed wire and with small sleighs for carrying
machine guns.

At 5:00 a.m., the Southern Force launched an attack on the forts facing them. The defenders,
overwhelmed, fell back towards the city. A fierce and bloody battle then broke out in the streets.
Machine guns were used, at very close range. The sailors defended each house, each attic, each shed.
In the town itself, they were reinforced by the workers' militias. The attacking troops were, for a few
hours, thrown back towards the forts and suburbs. The sailors reoccupied the Mechanical Institute,
which had been captured early by the 80th government Brigade.

Throughout 17th. March the fighting raged on. By the evening the Northern Group had
occupied most of the forts. Street fighting continued throughout the night and well into the
following morning. One by one the last forts--Milioutine, Constantine and Obroutchev--fell.
Even after the last one had been occupied, isolated groups of defenders were still desperately
fighting back with machine guns. Near the Tolbukhin light house, a final group of 150 sailors
put up a desperate resistance.

This is what Poukhov, 'official' Stalinist historian of the revolt, says on the matter: 'While
steps were being taken to re-establish normal life, and as the struggle against rebel remnants
was being pursued, the Revolutionary Tribunals of the Petrograd Military District were
carrying out their work in many areas'.....' Severe proletarian justice was being meted out to
all traitors to the Cause '.....' The sentences were given much publicity in the press and played
a great educational role'. These quotations from official sources refute Trotskyist lies that 'the
fortress was surrounded and captured with insignificant losses.'(12)
In the night of 17th-18th March, part of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee left
Kronstadt. Some 8,000 people (some sailors and the most active part of the civilian
population), moved towards Finland and permanent exile. When the Red Army--defenders of
the 'soviet' power--finally entered Kronstadt, they did not re-establish the Kronstadt soviet. Its
functions were taken over by the Political Section of the Secretariat of the new Assistant
Commander of the Fortress.

The Menshevik Dan, who was in prison for a while in Petrograd with a group of Kronstadt
rebels, tells us in his memoirs that Perepelkin, one of the members of the Provisional
Revolutionary Committee, was close to anarchism. He also tells us that the Kronstadt sailors
were both disillusioned and fed up with Communist Party policy and that they spoke with
hatred about political parties in general. In their eyes, the Mensheviks and the Socialist
Revolutionaries were as bad as the Bolsheviks. All were out to seize power and would later
betray the people who had vested their confidence in them. According to Dan, the conclusion
of the sailors, disappointed with political parties was: "You are all the same. What we need is
anarchism, not a power structure!".

At the time of the insurrection the anarchists were already being persecuted all over the
country. Isolated libertarians and the few remaining anarchist groupings were undoubtedly
'morally' on the side of the insurgents. This is shown for instance in the following leaflet,
addressed to the working class of Petrograd:

"The Kronstadt revolt is a revolution. Day and night you can hear the sound of the cannon.
You hesitate to intervene directly against the Government to divert its forces from Kronstadt,
although the cause of Kronstadt is your cause... The men of Kronstadt are always in the
forefront of rebellion. After the Kronstadt revolt let us see the revolt of Petrograd. And after
you, let anarchism prevail."

Before October both Bolsheviks and Anarchists had considerable influence at Kronstadt (4).
In the summer of 1917, at a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotsky had been able to answer
the Menshevik leader Tseretelli:

"Yes, the Kronstadters are anarchists. But during the final stage of the Revolution the
reactionaries who are now inciting you to exterminate Kronstadt will be preparing ropes to
hang both you and us. And it will be the Kronstadters who will fight to the last to defend us."
On the other hand the Kronstadters repeatedly insisted that they were "for soviet power". A
small minority of Russian libertarians (the 'soviet anarchists') were known to support the idea
of close collaboration with the soviets, which were already integrated into the state machine.
The Makhnovist movement on the other hand (which was not exclusively anarchist although
under the strong personal influence of Makhno, an anarchist since the age of 16) did not speak
of 'soviet power' as some thing to be defended. Its slogan was 'free soviets', i.e. soviets where
different political tendencies might coexist, without being vested with state power.

The Mensheviks had never carried much weight among the sailors. The number of Menshevik
deputies to the Kronstadt Soviet bore no real relation to their influence in the Fleet. The
anarchists, who after the second election only had three or four deputies to the Soviet, enjoyed
a far greater popularity. This paradoxical situation arose from the lack of organisation among
the anarchists and also from the fact that in 1917 the differences between bolshevism and
anarchism were hardly perceptible to the masses. Many anarchists at that time saw
bolshevism as a kind of Bakouninized Marxism (5).

Some claim that the Bolsheviks allowed themselves such actions (as the suppression of
Kronstadt) in the hope of a forthcoming world revolution, of which they considered
themselves the vanguard. But would not a revolution in another country have been influenced
by the spirit of the Russian Revolution? When one considers the enormous moral authority of
the Russian Revolution throughout the world one may ask oneself whether the deviations of
this Revolution would not eventually have left an imprint on other countries. Many historical
facts allow such a judgement. One may recognise the impossibility of genuine socialist
construction in a single country, yet have doubts as to whether the bureaucratic deformations
of the Bolshevik regime would have been straightened out by the winds coming from
revolutions in other countries.

But by its very essence a dictatorship destroys the creative capacities of a people. Despite the
undoubted attempts of the Government to educate workers, education soon became the
privilege of Party members loyal to the leading faction. From 1921 on, workers' faculties and
higher educational establishments were purged of their more independent minded elements.
This process gained tempo with the development of oppositional tendencies within the Party.
The attempt at a genuine mass education was increasingly compromised. Lenin's wish that
every cook should be able to govern the state became less and less likely to be implemented.

The great ideological and political discussion between 'realists' and 'dreamers' between
'scientific socialists' and the 'revolutionary volnitza' was fought out, weapons in hand. It
ended, in 1921, with the political and military defeat of the 'dreamers'. But Stalin was to prove
to the whole world that this defeat was also the defeat of socialism, over a sixth of the earth's
surface.