The Importance of Kronstadt Today - Cork meeting

by Red Terror Wed Apr 02, 2003 15:18

This posting has just confirmed to me that anarchists can only really base their politics in what they are opposed to. Krandstadt happened, it was in the interests of the workers, get over it.

The fact that this bloke is an anarchist would suggest that his father was an anarchist, thus showing that the Bolsheviks were correct to go in hard.

In a workers state it the working class that are in power, not the liberal middle class concepts of individualism and anarchism.

HAIL RED ARMY!

by March 1921 Wed Apr 02, 2003 15:31

RESOLUTION OF THE GENERAL MEETING
OF THE CREWS OF THE FIRST AND SECOND SQUADRONS
OF THE BALTIC FLEET
HELD MARCH 1, 1921

Having heard the report of the representatives sent by the General Meeting of the Ship Crews to Petrograd to investigate the situation there, Resolved:

(1) In view of the fact that the present Soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, the pre-election campaign to have full freedom of agitation among the workers and peasants;
(2) To establish freedom of speech and press for workers and peasants, for Anarchists and left Socialist parties;
(3) To secure freedom of assembly for labor unions and peasant organizations;
(4) To call a non-partisan Conference of the workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt, and of Petrograd Province, no later than March 10th, 1921;
(5) To liberate all political prisoners of socialist parties, as well as all workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors imprisoned in connection with the labor and peasant movements;
(6) To elect a commission to review the cases of those held in prisons and concentration camps;
(7) To abolish all politotdeli (political bureaus) because no party should be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive the financial support of the government for such purposes. Instead there should be established educational and cultural commissions, locally elected and financed by the government;
(8) To abolish immediately all zagryaditelniye otryadi;*
(9) To equalize the rations of all who work, with the exception of those employed in trades is detrimental to health;
(10) To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all branches of the Army, as well as the Communist guards kept on duty in mills and factories. Should such guards or military detachments be found necessary, they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks, and in the factories according to the judgment of the workers;
(11) To give the peasants full freedom of action in regard to their land, and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the peasants manage with their own means; that is, without employing hired labor;
(12) To request all branches of the army, as well as our comrades the military kursanti, to concur in our resolutions;
(13) To demand that the press give the fullest publicity to resolutions;
(14) To appoint a Travelling Commission of Control;
(15) To permit free kustarnoye (Individuals small scale) production by one's own efforts.

Resolution passed unanimously by a brigade in meeting, to persons refraining from voting.

PETRICHENKO

Chairman Brigade Meeting

PEREPELKIN

Secretary

Resolution passed by an overwhelming majority of the Kronstadt garrison.

VASSILIEV

Chairman

Together with comrade Kalinin Vassiliev votes against the resolution.

by OldSeaMan - In there own words Wed Apr 02, 2003 15:39

I, an old seaman of the 1904 recruitment, having suffered all the bitter parts of life and currently an insignificant workingman for the good of the laborers, pass through the current moment with deep sorrow in my heart. For three years, the suffering worker, peasant and every kind of honest toiler believed in a bright future, believed in the leaders of the Communist Party who stand at the front.

But a split is occurring in the heights of the party, and it is echoing everywhere. The party has occupied itself with politics at the time when the end of the Civil War demands that it direct its work only into the channel of economic life, the channel of reconstructing the economy of the destroyed country.

In the localities, outrages have been committed by the proteges of the commissars and of other responsible workers. Complaints have been brought from far and wide against individual members of the party. The grumbling got stronger, and finally the suffering worker and peasant would not put up with it and revolted openly. The ruling party did not justify the faith of the masses, and Kronstadt broke away first.

Away with you, torture chambers and tortures! Enough of spilled blood; honest citizens don't want it! These are practices of butchers from the tsarist time of the past. In a free country they must not be. The peasant will understand that it is necessary to give the city bread even without commissars, and the worker in turn will strive to give the peasant everything necessary from his own production. The power which the laboring class has won for itself won't be given away to anyone. The laboring class will make it stronger, and direct it into a new channel of life.

Soviet power must be the expression of the will of all the laboring masses, without the rulership of any kind of political party. A great cause is being carried out, and Kronstadt has made the start, as vanguard of the Revolution. It let all the Republic understand that it is impossible to continue like this. There are no stinking plots against Soviet power here. All the laboring masses of Kronstadt see this. There are no White Guards at the head of the movement here, but only selfless citizens who have taken on their own shoulders the responsibility of carrying the cause to the end, with the slogan, "Victory or Death."

No one wanted blood, and all the rumors let out by the Communists that this is an open uprising against Soviet power aren't founded on anything. Life goes on normally. The call to bloodletting is being made by the upper reaches of the party in the person of Trotsky.

Blood has been spilled.

For what? For the dominion of the party?! No, enough of politics and blood. Leaders of the Communist Party, realize what you are doing! If you haven't come to an understanding among yourselves, fight however you want, but leave us in peace. We, the lowly, don't want that. We want to build our lives, to set right the country's destroyed economy so that the children won't be able to say of their fathers that they didn't do anything for the good of the younger generation.

Let us build our lives!

And you must give up your position to the laboring people without any bloodletting. Give your place at the wheel of government to the laborers. I openly declare, as a rank and file Communist, that our children must not perish under bombs thrown from airplanes by Trotsky's order.

Having respect for the idea of Communism, like every other pure idea, I as a rank and file member of the party, given to the service of the entire laboring class since a young age, openly say, "let all laborers breathe free."

There must not be any more of the dominion of any kind of party. Our Soviets must be the expressors of the will not of parties, but of the electors. It is necessary to create the will of the laboring masses. They seek truth, freedom and a better life, without oppression, torture chambers, executions and tortures.

I remain in spirit with the pure idea of Communism, since every pure idea is faith in a better future, and no on has the power to kill it. At the same time I declare that after three years in the party, I have seen the entire unfairness of the upper reaches of the party, which have contracted the disease of bureaucratism and become separated from the masses. Therefore, I take the stamp of party membership from myself, and in general do not intend to enter any other party from this time on. I worked, and want to continue to freely and honestly work, for the good of all the laborers of Soviet Russia, like every honest citizen.

KURASHEV, Director of the Town Finance Department,
former worker in the Naval Artillery Laboratory

by Ensign Chekov - Starfleet Wed Apr 02, 2003 18:48

I'll be speaking for the Space Cadets.

by Lala Wed Apr 02, 2003 19:51

This meeting promises to be truly revealing about the WSM and it's bizarre approach to things.

by Serge Maximoff - not the WSM Wed Apr 02, 2003 23:57 Kronstadt

This meeting (which was advertised by poster, email, indymedia, blah, blah) was actually a surprise party for 50% (one of two) of the Cork WSM. No meeting, no speaker. Wonder what happened to those who wanted to hear about Kronstadt?? Funny though, they must expect no-one to attend their public meetings if they do this sort of thing. Bigger question, why wasn't Andrew told??

by sailor boy Thu Apr 03, 2003 00:44

was that despite the manifesto etc produced by the heads in kron, they were perfectly willing to accept help from the Whites (via Finalnd i think), once the ice melted in the port and supplies could get in. the White position in exile was (basically) 'support the uprising, because it is in opposition to the bolsheviks, then all power to the SDs'. There is no way the bolsheviks could have let that uprising take place. It would have undermined the whole revolution, given inspiration to dormant White forces all over the country. and we always hear about the poor anarchists and reformists who were killed, but never about the brave red army comrades who died. nooo, they are 'evil' leninists. one of the bolsheviks said it best when he called it a 'regrettable necessity'.

and as a qualification, i add that i am neither an anarchist nor a communist (or trot) but i believe that in this instance the bolsheviks, as a revolutionary force who believed their fight was right, were totally correct. the executions afterwards tho', not the best idea.