Contents

I.
Introduction by Murray Bookchin

II.
Preface to Solidarity Edition.

III.
Introduction to the French Edition

IV.
The Kronstadt Events -- Background.

V.
What they Said at the Time.

VI.
Kronstadt: last upsurge of the Soviets.

VII.
Footnotes.

I.
Introduction by Murray Bookchin

"We can now say, however, that the Kronstadt uprising marked the definitive end of the Russian Revolution itself. Indeed, the character and importance of the uprising were destined to become issues of acrimonious dispute within the international Left for years to come. Today, although an entirely new generation of revolutionaries has emerged - a generation almost totally uninformed of the events "the problem of Kronstadt" has lost none of its relevance and poignancy. For the Kronstadt uprising posed very far-reaching issues: the relationship between the so-called "masses" and the parties which profess to speak in their name, and the nature of the social system in the modern Soviet Union. The Kronstadt uprising, in effect, remains as a lasting challenge to the Bolshevik concept of a party's historical function and the notion of the Soviet Union as a "workers" or "socialist" state."

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II.
Preface to Solidarity Edition

"Our purpose in publishing this text about the Kronstadt events of 1921 is not to draw up an alternative timetable. Nor are we looking for political ancestors. The construction of an orthodox apostolic succession is the least of our preoccupations. (In a constantly changing world it would only testify to our theoretical sterility). Our object is simply to document some of the real - but less well known - struggles that took place against the growing bureaucracy during the early post-revolutionary years, at a time when most of the later critics of the bureaucracy were part and parcel of the apparatus itself."

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III.
Introduction to the French Edition

"The time seems ripe for us to seek a better understanding of Kronstadt, although no new facts have emerged since 1921. The archives of the Russian Government and of the Red Army remain closed to any kind of objective analysis. However statements in some official publications seem to reflect some of these events, albeit in a distorted light. But what was known at the time was already sufficient to allow one to grasp the political significance of this symptomatic and crucial episode of the Russian Revolution. "

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IV.
The Kronstadt Events -- Background

"The Kronstadt sailors and the Petrograd strikers know quite well that Russia's economic status was at the root of the political crisis. Their discontent was caused both by the famine and by the whole evolution of the political situation. The Russian workers were increasingly disillusioned in their greatest hope: the Soviets. Daily they saw the power of a single Party substituting itself for that of the Soviets. A Party, moreover, which was degenerating rapidly through the exercise of absolute power, and which was already riddled with careerists. it was against the monopoly exercised by this Party in all fields of life that the working class sought to react . . . Point one of the Kronstadt resolution expressed an idea shared by the best elements of the Russian working class. Totally 'bolshevised' Soviets no longer reflected the wishes of the workers and peasants. Hence the demand for now elections, to be carried out according to the principle of full equality for all working class political tendencies."

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V.
What they Said at the Time

"Petrichenko's Evidence: "Popular anger against the dictatorship Of the Communist Party -- or rather against its bureaucracy -- took the form of an insurrection. This is how precious blood came to be split. There was no question of class or caste differences. There were workers on both sides of the barricades. The difference lay in the fact that the men of Kronstadt marched forward consciously and of their own free will, while those who were attacking them had been misled by the Communist party leaders and some were even acting against their own wishes. I can tell you even more: the Kronstadters didn't enjoy taking up arms and spilling blood!"

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VI.
Kronstadt: last upsurge of the Soviets

"The basic laws of the Soviet Republic constitute a juridical summary of the ideology of the October Revolution. By the end of the Civil War these ideas had been pushed so far back that a third revolution would have been necessary to reinstate them and have them applied in everyday life. This is what the Kronstadt rebels meant when they spoke of the Third Revolution. In the Kronstadt Isvestia of March 8 they wrote: "At Kronstadt the foundation stone has been laid of the Third Revolution. This will break the final chains which still bind the working masses and will open up new paths of socialist creation."

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VII.
Footnotes

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