Pravda o Kronshtadte
(The Truth about Kronstadt)
by Scott Zenkatsu Parker
edited by Mary Huey (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mhuey/billybragg.html)
"http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mhuey/HOME.html"
It must always be remembered - and remembered well - that revolution does not mean destruction only. It means destruction plus construction, with the greatest emphasis on the plus.
Alexander Berkman, The Russian Tragedy (Berlin: Der Syndikalist, 1922), p. 16.
Kronstadt is of great historic significance. It sounded the death knell of Bolshevism with its Party dictatorship, mad centralisation, Tcheka terrorism and bureaucratic castes. It struck into the very heart of Communist autocracy. At the same time it shocked the intelligent and honest minds of Europe and America into a critical examination of Bolshevik theories and practices. It exploded the Bolshevik myth of the Communist State being the "Workers' and Peasants' Government".
Berkman, The Kronstadt Rebellion (Berlin: Der Syndikalist, 1922), pp. 41-42.
Nor is it only the liberty and lives of individual citizens which are sacrificed to this god of clay, nor even merely the well-being of the country - it is socialist ideals and the fate of the Revolution which are being destroyed.
Berkman, The Russian Revolution and the Communist Party (Berlin: Der Syndikalist, 1922), p. 36.
The Truth about Kronstadt:
A Translation with a Discussion of the Authors
by Scott Zenkatsu Parker
edited by Mary Huey
Dedicated to my parents, Kathleen and Clarence Pugh
Originally presented in 1992 as an Honors Thesis to the Faculty of the Department of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at Bates College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Science.
Copyright © 1992, 1998 by Scott Zenkatsu Parker.
The author permits the unlimited duplication, transmission, and distribution of this text with the proper citations for academic, educational, and non-commercial use only. If you cite this work, please email a copy of your completed text to zkparker@aracnet.com.
Acknowledgements
Translator's Note
The Truth about Kronstadt and Izvestiia of the PRC
About the Authors
Bibliography
Links
Editor's Note: Historical Significance of Pravda o Kronshtadte
Glossary of Terms
Questions or comments? Email zkparker@aracnet.com.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Professor Dennis Browne for his extensive help in preparing this work. I am also grateful to Professor Steven Hochstadt for introducing me to Kronstadt, and to Professor Jane Costlow and the staff of the Reference Department of the George and Helen Ladd Library whose efforts in obtaining necessary resources were both invaluable and greatly appreciated. Professor Richard Stites of Georgetown University provided many useful suggestions toward improving the readability and usefulness of the text -- many of which it should be noted I have yet to implement. I would also like to specially thank Andrei Strukov and Maksim Kopanitsa for all their kindness and knowledge in providing information on the intricacies of the Russian language and of early Soviet-era culture.
Materials for the work were provided by the George and Helen Ladd Library at Bates College, the Library of the University of Connecticut, the Library of the University of Vermont, the Library of Congress, the Mount Holyoke College Library, the Columbia University Library, and the private collection of Professor Jane Costlow. Supplemental material for the online version of this work were obtained from the University of Michigan Harlan Hatcher Library and the University of Michigan Special Collections Library.
Translating this text would have been much more difficult without the excellent Russian-English dictionary of Professors A. I. Smirnitsky and O. S. Akhmanova, which is also the source of all weight and measure definitions.
The deepest debt of all is owed to my editor and friend Mary Huey. Her persistence, encouragement, and diligent dedication of great amounts of personal time to the project have been solely responsible for making this work available to the public in the face of a procrastinating and distracted author. She is truly remarkable.
Finally, I wish to note that all shortcomings of the text are thanks to myself.
Translator's Note
Transliterations follow the Library of Congress system, as given in Great Soviet Encyclopedia, a Translation of the Third Edition, Index, p. x (Prokhorov ed., 1973), with several changes in the interests of readability. Diacriticals are omitted, though the soft sign appears as 'i' when it occurs before the soft 'e'. Proper names are transcribed with 'sch' instead of 'shch,' and in family names, 'aya' instead of 'aia' and 'y' instead of 'ii' or 'yi.' Where there are traditional spelling irregularities, the style used in Kronstadt 1921 by Paul Avrich has been used, to aid in identification.
Russian terms in transliteration are italicized, and when necessary are defined in the text or in footnotes on their first appearance.
The general object of the translation has been to preserve the actual content and feeling of the original text, to the degree that it does not interfere with scholarly usefulness and readability. Native Russian speakers confirm that the language and style used in 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee' is generally very simple and even colloquial, and it has been attempted to express this in the translation. Every attempt has been made to retain the multiple meanings inherent in segments which are ambiguous or poorly written in the original Russian, while clarifying ambiguities which are due to purely contextual or language differences. Similarly, where capitalization has differed from the norms of Russian usage and of the original text, this has been reflected in the translation.
There are instances in the text where a single institution or person is referred to by several variations of the same name, or by abbreviations of that name. These variations and abbreviations have been preserved or reflected in the translation to the degree that they do not interfere with the text's readability. Where the original contains differing versions of the same documents, this has been noted.
It is hoped that this translation achieves a proper balance between the original, colloquial feel of the text and scholarly clarification. The translator's goal has been to provide the scholar with an important resource, and the interested layman with a basis for understanding of the Kronstadt rebels, their actions, and the period in which they lived.
About the Authors
Pravda o Kronshtadte (in the future Pravda), the original text of The Truth about Kronstadt (Truth), is the work of many hands. It is also a key primary source for any discussion of the Kronstadt Rebellion of 1921. Because of these two facts, and in the interest of gaining a better understanding of the text, it is helpful to discuss several questions arising from the translation. Who were the original authors and publishers of the different sections and sub-sections of the work, and what were their political views? How did these views, changing conditions in Russia and internationally, and the interests of the authors combine to shape their relations toward one another, and toward other groups involved in the great upheavals of the Russian Revolutionary and Civil War era from 1917 to 1921?
The authors of Pravda all belong to various branches of the socialist movement which developed out of the Russian Populism of the late 19th Century. For the purposes of this essay, the authors will be described and differentiated politically by two specific aspects of their beliefs: their views of Socialism, and of the proper role of non-socialist forces in the revolution. These aspects do not definitively describe the beliefs of the groups in question. They are, however, issues which were important to the political context of the time, and which help to explain the major conflicts and divisions between contemporary Russian socialists. Different socialist groups held widely different views of how Socialism could and should be achieved, and what would characterize the resulting socialist state. Further, some endorsed intervention by outside forces and the work of Russian conservative groups, while others vehemently opposed such actions. These differences contributed heavily to many of the political alliances and enmities of the period, and specifically to those of the authors of Pravda.
International and internal conditions changed greatly during this period. Also, once one common interest or goal had been addressed, it was often the case that erstwhile allies found themselves with new, divergent interests. Amidst the stresses of such changing conditions and alliances, the authors' views on the two questions placed above, the nature of Socialism, and the proper role of non-socialist forces in the revolution changed also. The authors' relations to one another, and to other groups will be discussed within the framework of this net of changing conditions, interests and beliefs.
Who then were the authors of Pravda, and what were their political views? The first group of authors to be discussed will be the common rebels, who make a strong appearance in the pages of Izvestiia through their declarations and appeals. Second, there are the newspaper's editors, represented by Anatolii Lamanov, who wrote such important articles as "What We Are Fighting For" and "Stages of Revolution" (Getzler, p. 232, endnote 112). The rebels' military and civilian leaders, represented by Stepan Petrichenko, President of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, also played a major role through their announcements, and their later interviews with Volia Rossii. Despite some question of Petrichenko's political affiliations, these first three groups hold fundamentally similar views, and can often be considered as a single body. Finally, there is the preface by Volia Rossii itself, which was a newspaper published in Prague by Right Socialist Revolutionaries, including A. F. Kerensky.
The sailors, soldiers and workers in Kronstadt, home port of the Baltic Fleet, were perhaps the best educated, most politically aware and most rebellious segment of the Russian working people. Of the 50,000 person civilian population, the industrial workforce was 17,000. There were also 20,000 Baltic Fleet sailors in Kronstadt, and because of the technological demands of a modern navy, industrial workers composed 31% of those drafted between 1904 and 1916, compared to 3.43% of those drafted into the army. Only 6% of the fleet's draftees were illiterate. Industrial workers were a primary object of political agitation by socialist parties, and Getzler quotes the pre-revolutionary director of the Police Department as complaining that such recruits would:
"bring into the navy...a hostile attitude to all authority absorbed from the age of 12-15 since when they have moved amidst propagandized workers" (p. 10).
He notes that these sailors were also broadly educated in naval schools for their technical positions (pp. 1, 10-11).
Kronstadt already had a long and fiery history of both spontaneous and politically directed rebellion prior to the upheavals of 1917. There was underground activity among the crews in Kronstadt throughout the first two decades of the 20th Century. Spontaneous riots flared up in 1905, and another rebellion, led by a coalition of parties, took place in 1906. The Kronstadt sailors played a leading role in the Revolutionary events of 1917, culminating on October 25th when they participated in storming the Winter Palace, overturning the Provisional Government led by Kerensky and effectively placing the Bolsheviks in power.
Despite the tens of thousands of Baltic Fleet sailors who went to fight at the fronts of the Civil War, Getzler reports that the composition of the Kronstadt garrison had not meaningfully changed by 1921. Of a populace of 50,000, there were 27,000 sailors and soldiers and 13,000 civilian laborers. Working with both western and Soviet sources, including data by A. S. Pukhov, he states that 75.5% of those serving in the fleet on January 1st, 1921 had been drafted before 1918 (Getzler, pp. 205, 208, footnote 11). It should be noted that Pukhov himself, in his complete work, draws very different conclusions, stating without exact figures that "[o]ver the 2-3 years before the mutiny, and especially in 1920, processes occured in the fleet which meaningfully changed the character of the personel structure in the direction of a sharp lowering of the qualitative indicator, from both the class and political perspectives" (Pukhov, p. 39).
Through and above all, these educated, independent and politically aware Kronstadt sailors and workers wanted, and acted as, a radical and spontaneous socialist democracy. The classic forms of Kronstadt organization were the mass meeting and the committee, or Soviet, of deputies subject to immediate recall. There was free participation for all socialist classes and parties. The Kronstadters rejected any and all authority beyond their own Soviet, and it was not uncommon for participants in a mass meeting, inflamed by orators, to force the Soviet itself to sudden and embarrassing policy changes.The sailors and workers had an active and violent hatred for the bourgeois, noble and officer classes, and rejected any role for them in the political and economic life of Kronstadt, its Soviet, and the Republic at large. They believed in, and in fact saw in Kronstadt through much of 1917, the immediate achievement of almost purely laborer led institutions and government. They thought that such institutions could be immediately established throughout all of Russia by the action of the laboring classes, without help from non-socialist groups.
Anatolii Lamanov appeared on the scene with the February Revolution of 1917. A third-year technology student, he became Chairman of the Kronstadt Soviet of Workers' Deputies. Later he was to serve as the Chairman of the Kronstadt Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies ("Kronstadt Soviet") and on the editorial board of its newspaper. He was also head of Kronstadt's Non-Party Group, which in August of 1917 joined the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries Maximalists and adopted that group's name. (Getzler, pp. 30, 37-38, 135).
Because Lamanov held such leading positions in highly democratic Kronstadt, it is reasonable to believe that his philosophy reflected the beliefs of a large contingent of the population. By Getzler's figures, the Non-Party Group/Maximalists received 77 delegates of 280 in the first Soviet, elected in March, 68 delegates in the second, elected in May, and 96 delegates in the third, elected in August (pp. 36, 65-66, 134). He states of the Non-Party Group, and its leader Lamanov:
"... it rejected party factionalism, stood for pure sovietism and thus fitted admirably into Kronstadt's early revolutionary and markedly soviet landscape ..." (p. 37).
"... his was a call for restraint, for close ties with the Petrograd Soviet, for 'the unity of the revolutionary all-national movement,' and a voice that spoke always against that 'disunity and party discord' which had 'ruined the revolution of France,'" (p.55-56).
As Socialist-Revolutionaries Maximalists, Lamanov, his group and the Kronstadters who supported them were part of a movement which took its name from the "maximum" program of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. This program called for the immediate socialization of the factories at the same time as the land. In many ways the Maximalists agreed with the Bolsheviks, and in October of 1918 they supported the overthrow of the Provisional Government. However, as V. V. Garmiz, a Soviet writer, points out, they differed with the Bolsheviks in that they "did not recognize the dictatorship of the proletariat, and denied the necessity of centralized administration of the country's economy; [they] spoke against the Treaty of Brest[-Litovsk] with Germany," considering it a concession to international Imperialism. Also, as their basic program suggests, the Maximalists did not consider an intermediate period of bourgeois capitalist government to be necessary for the achievement of Socialism (see Nicoll, 1980a; Garmiz et. al., p. 255).
Thus, Lamanov and the Maximalists, like the Kronstadt sailors and workers, viewed Socialism as the immediate transformation of the country to a Soviet republic of laborer ownership and leadership, sweeping aside the land and factory owners without any period of transition or compensation. While they may have envisioned an "initiative minority" (Garmiz et. al.) as the spark for a revolution to be carried out by the power of labor, they opposed any action by non-socialist groups and western governments.
The case of the other Kronstadt leaders is somewhat less clear. Petrichenko, it is known for certain, was a senior clerk, originally from a Ukrainian peasant family. Before joining the navy in 1912, he was a plumber, and had only two years of formal schooling. He was chairman of the Petropavlovsk meeting where the resolution which served as the uprising's foundation was originally passed, and was later President of the Presidium at the Conference of Delegates which formed the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. These facts give him every appearance of being an honest Soviet worker rising to lead a liberation movement, and in full agreement with the views of Lamanov and the Kronstadt sailors (Avrich, pp. 72-74, 80-82).
However, in one early, authoritative Soviet account of the rebellion, Petrichenko is accused of being a Ukrainian nationalist, and a sympathizer with the SRs and Anarchists (Pukhov, p. 76-77). If this were true, it could be proposed that contrary to his and other Kronstadters stated non-party beliefs, Petrichenko went beyond philosophical agreement with the SRs to actually having secret contacts with partisan forces, and that he intended to use the rebellion as a stepping stone for the introduction of SR power and government in Russia. Further, even simple agreement with the Right Socialist Revolutionaries' philosphy as it existed through 1918 would be a damning accusation in many workers' eyes, for reasons which will be discussed below. Further, even simple agreement with the Right Socialist Revolutionaries' philosophy as it existed through 1918 would be a damning accusation in many workers' eyes.
The same accusation of partisan leanings was made against Anatolii Lamanov, as a member of a political organization (Pukhov, p. 77). In this case however, Lamanov's political affiliation with the Maximalists is in no way secret, being announced clearly in his letter of departure from the R.K.P.(b.), in the third issue of Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com. (Pravda, pp. 59-60). In any case, a possible secondary connection to the SRs does not mean that Petrichenko's statements must not first be considered and analyzed through the lens of his indisputable role as a Kronstadt sailor and leader, elected to office from and living within the democratic Kronstadt milieu outlined above. Because of this, the Kronstadt workers and sailors, Lamanov and his Non-Party Group/Maximalists, and Petrichenko can all be primarily considered as a political and philosophical unit in most cases. However, Petrichenko and the Provisional Revolutionary Committee must also then be discussed separately, to analyze their possible role as supporters of one or another of the non-maximalist branches of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
Volia Rossii, publisher of Pravda, is itself the publication of the SR Party's right branch. Unlike every other book published by the newspaper and then sold through its advertisements, Pravda is unsigned. The author, or authors are never indicated, either in the book itself or in the pages of Volia Rossii. It may thus be viewed, like the unsigned front page editorials, as stating or representing the beliefs of the newspaper's leading figures.
Volia Rossii indicates on its masthead that it was produced "with the close participation of V. M. Zenzinov, V. I. Lebedev, and O. S. Minor." The literary critic Marc Slonim, at that time the newspaper's editorial secretary, describes these three figures as the publishers, and reports that A. F. Kerensky was also closely involved with the newspaper (Slonim, p. 291).
A historical discussion of these figures provides the answers to the two questions placed above: what were their views of Socialism, and what role in the revolution did they see for non-socialist groups. Apparently the oldest and least known member of the publishing group was Osip Solomonovich Minor. A student at Moscow University, he had been drawn into a revolutionary circle led by Vl. Rosenberg at least by 1883 at the time of the killing of Colonel Sudeikin. Sudeikin was the Kiev Police Chief and a bitter enemy of the People's Will terrorists (Minor, p. 9; Nicoll, 1980b, p. 170). While Rosenberg's group styled itself as part of People's Will, Sudeikin's murder was among the last gasps of the original organization founded in 1879, and it was presumably one of the several attempts at breathing new life into this dying division of the populist movement (see Tvardovskaya, p. 255).
Minor reports that after he had been repeatedly arrested and released, he was sentenced in 1885 to ten years of exile in Northeastern Siberia for "harmful influence on youth." In Yakutsk, he met a number of old Populists and People's Will activists who made a deep impression on him. There, he took part in the uprising of March 22nd, 1889. He was sentenced to hanging for his part in the uprising, but the sentence was commuted to unlimited hard labor, and later to ten years of exile from the day of sentence. By 1898 he was able to return to central Russia outside the capitals of Saint Petersburg and Moscow (see Minor).
Tvardovskaya, a Soviet writer, laments in regard to People's Will that while its members "had recognized the necessity of political struggle with autocracy," they shared the "Socialist Utopian" views of the Populists in general, and "first of all a belief in the possiblity for Russia, bypassing capitalism, to come to Socialism through a peasant revolution" (Tvardovskaya, p. 254). People's Will and the Populists were also, however, favorable to the intelligentsia, of whom the populist movement was largely composed. The intelligentsia, in turn, was closely tied to the lower nobility and bourgeoisie. P. A. Alekseev, a Populist from a peasant family, was one of the activists who met and impressed Minor in Yakutsk. In a speech at his 1878 trial he declared that, "it is obvious that the Russian workman can have hope only in himself, and can expect help only from our young intelligentsia" (Venturi, p. 534).
Among the policies espoused, at least publicly, by People's Will were a Constituent Assembly, broad fundamental freedoms and transfer of all land and factories to the people. The Populists and presumably Minor with them desired a social revolution which would overthrow the ruling classes. They did not consider themselves as part of the ruling classes but as a revolutionary intelligentsia working alongside of, or if necessary, leading the workers and peasants (see Nicoll, 1980b and Blakely for concise discussions of Populism and People's Will).
Although Minor's autobiography ends well before the events of 1917 to 1921, it is interesting as an illustration of links between Volia Rossii and Populism, and the Populists' belief in a leading role for the intelligentsia in both a social revolution and the resulting socialist state. Every major socialist party of the Revolutionary era, including the Communists, has at least some roots in Populism. However, the belief in a revolution based in the peasantry but helped or led by the intelligentsia was preserved in and espoused particularly strongly by the right branch of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. This branch includes the leading figures of Volia Rossii.
Vladimir Mikhailovich Zenzinov, Vladimir I. Lebedev and Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerensky were more recent and prominent figures in the Socialist Revolutionary Party than Minor. Zenzinov, according to Perrie, was an active member from when he joined as a student in 1904. He took part in terrorist activities and the uprisings of 1905 and 1906, was arrested and escaped repeatedly. In 1910, he was finally sentenced to five years' exile in a remote village on the Indigirka River in Siberia. Perrie reports that Zenzinov returned to Russia at the beginning of the World War, became part of the more conservative, "defensist" or war-supporting wing of the socialist movement and SR Party, and also became a close friend of Kerensky (see Perrie, 1980b; Melancon also provides an interesting article on relations between the socialist descendants of Populism, and the right-left intra-party splits brought on by the World War).
Perrie states that after the February Revolution Zenzinov served on the Petrograd Soviet Executive Committee, and held an appointment for the Provisional Government. At the time of the October Revolution he joined the Committee to Save the Fatherland and the Revolution, which struggled against the Bolshevik coup. According to Perrie, after the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, Zenzinov eventually joined the Committee of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) and the "Ufa Directory," which formed an opposition government with the participation of the bourgeois Constitutional Democrats, on fundamentally the same bases as those of the government which existed before October. In November 1918, the Directory was overthrown by reactionary elements and replaced by Kolchak, a White commander. Zenzinov fled abroad (Perrie, 1980b, pp. 17-21).
According to Sack, Lebedev fought in the Russo-Japanese War, and then, after fleeing Russia for political reasons, served in the French Army from the beginning of the World War until the February Revolution. He returned to Russia and joined the Provisonal Government as Assistant Minister for the Navy in the Second Coalition Cabinet, which was formed in July 1917, although he left it again in a dispute over what he believed to be weak treatment of the Bolsheviks after the July Days. He was part of the ill-fated Constituent Assembly, and along with Zenzinov joined Komuch and the Directory, in which he worked as a military leader in coordination with the Czech Legion. Lebedev was presumably deposed at the same time as the other Socialists (see Sack, pp. 3-5).
Kerensky is famous as the socialist Prime Minister of the coalition Provisional Governments. According to Rollins, he followed an early path similar to that of Zenzinov, joining the socialist movement during his time as a student in Saint Petersburg from 1899 to 1904. He took part in socialist and liberal revolutionary activity, served in the State Duma, rose to prominence as a criminal defense lawyer, and underwent the standard arrests. He was a freemason from 1912, and a member of the right wing of the socialist movement, supporting the war with Germany as a step toward political liberation. Throughout his career Kerensky leaned strongly toward liberal, rather than strictly socialist, principles. Rollins says of Russian freemasonry that, "[its] objective... was not the popular democracy sought by the left but rather a republic directed by the liberal intelligentsia. Rejecting mass action, it aimed to destroy the monarchy by infiltrating and transforming the government and higher bureaucracy into instruments of revolution" (Rollins, p. 109). Serving in various Provisional Governments as Minister of Justice, War and Prime Minister, Kerensky was one of the leading supporters of these governments' official policy of coalition with the Constitutional Democrats and other non-socialist groups, and of the resulting concessions to land and factory owners. At that time, no party except the Bolsheviks believed in the ability of the socialist Soviets to achieve the social revolution without the involvement and cooperation of the bourgeois elements, and Kerensky would not or could not take the political steps necessary to satisfy the masses. Along with the Provisional Government, he was thrown out of power in the October Revolution, and as has been noted, it was the sailors and soldiers of Kronstadt who helped perform the act (see Rollins).
As prominent Socialist Revolutionaries, Zenzinov, Lebedev and Kerensky joined Minor in supporting the old populist idea of a social revolution with a basis in the workers and peasants, but also in the intelligentsia. The official SR program accepted at the First Party Conference in 1905-1906 calls for the "removal [of land] from sale and changing it from personal property... to the common property of the people" (Sbornik..., pp. 45-46) and states that "the whole weight of the struggle with tsarism falls on the proletariat, the laboring peasantry, and the revolutionary intelligentsia" (quoted in Melancon, p. 244). According to contemporary sources, this program continued to be the official party view in 1917 (Morokhovets, pp. 73-74).
Thus, starting from their populist roots and continuing through at least 1918, the main figures of Volia Rossii believed in a Socialism and a socialist state which would fulfill the laborers' desires, but which would be led by the intelligentsia. They were also willing to allow non-socialist groups to play a role in the revolution (see Perrie, 1980a for a fuller discussion of the Socialist Revolutionary Party).
When Pukhov accuses Petrichenko of sympathizing with Socialist Revolutionary beliefs, he is referring to ones such as those outlined in the previous paragraph. As mentioned above in the discussion of Petrichenko, such an accusation, if true, would indeed be damning to many Soviet laborers, and specifically the people of Kronstadt, because these SR beliefs were in direct conflict with the political beliefs of the Kronstadt sailors and their leaders.
Apart from the differences pointed out above, there were also other issues which separated Kronstadt and its leaders from the Right SRs and their Provisional Government. Sack describes Lebedev, as Minister of the Navy, as taking "strict measures for reestablishing discipline in the Russian Fleet." This was an extremely unpopular policy with the independent Kronstadt sailors. Sack continues, "In July, 1917, he was at the head of the forces which suppressed the Bolshevist revolt" (Sack, p. 4). Here again, the Kronstadt sailors were not just the support, but the foundation and structure of the July Days demonstrations (see Getzler, pp. 111-124).
Taking into account the disagreement between Kronstadt and the Right SRs on the two questions placed above, the view of Socialism and the view of the role of non-socialist groups in the Revolution, as well as the other fundamental conflicts of interest and belief, Kronstadt's July and October 1917 opposition to Kerensky, the Right Socialist Revolutionaries and the Provisional Governments which they helped form is well explained.
By March of 1921, however, the situation had changed drastically. Wrangell, the last White commander, had been driven from the Crimea. Western governments had given up on their half-hearted attempts at intervention, and were beginning to negotiate agreements with the new Soviet government. Unwilling to allow even peaceful criticism, the Bolsheviks were driving their left socialist and anarchist allies of the Revolution and Civil War further and further from public life. Peasant rebellions were springing up against the razverstka, the armed appropriation of grain and other supplies under War Communism. With the collapse of the internal and external threats to the Republic, the peasants were ever less willing to accept these coercive policies.
The workers and sailors were also deeply affected by these concerns, both because their food supply was affected by the economic ruin of the Civil War and War Communism, and because in many cases they still maintained close ties to the villages. Finally, the Communist Party was accused of operating out of control, becoming bureaucratized and removed from the people, being unable to handle the economic ruin which gripped Russia. The declarations by sailors, soldiers and workers printed in 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' speak of these issues repeatedly. They are echoed by Lamanov in his declaration of departure from the Communist Party and in the articles he wrote defining Kronstadt's cause. Some of these issues are also raised by Petrichenko in the first article of the first edition (see also "Leaving the R.C.P.," "What We Are Fighting For," "Voice of the Deceived," "Leaving the Party"; Pravda, pp. 45, 59, 76, 82, 105, 132). These were the issues which drove Kronstadt and its leaders away from the Communists.
Izvestiia also indicates that the leadership of the uprising had a relationship with the emigre Right Socialist Revolutionaries. In the third edition, there are printed "greetings to the Kronstadt garrison," broadcast from Reval (Pravda, p. 57). This is apparently the greatly expurgated text of a broadcast which Avrich ascribes to a group which included both Zenzinov and Kerensky. The full text is as follows:
"The chairman of the Constituent Assembly, Victor Chernov, sends his fraternal greetings to the heroic comrade sailors, Red Army men, and workers, who for the third time since 1905 are throwing off the yoke of tyranny. He offers to aid with men and to provision Kronstadt through the Russian cooperatives abroad. Inform us what and how much is needed. I am prepared to come in person and give my energies and authority to the service of the people's revolution. I have faith in the final victory of the laboring masses. Hail to the first to raise the banner of the people's liberation! Down with despotism from the left and the right!"
In response, Kronstadt broadcast: "The Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt expresses to all our brothers abroad its deep gratitude for their sympathy. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee is thankful for Chernov's offer, but it declines for the moment, until further developments become clarified. Meanwhile, everything will be taken into consideration" (Avrich, pp. 124-25).
Kronstadt did not appeal for any help from abroad until the uprising was already near defeat, and never received any of the food or other aid which SRs and more conservative groups were eager to give them (see Avrich, pp. 115-127). However, they were not willing to reject the Chernov's overture out of hand. There were several reasons for this guarded but not unfriendly response. First, despite speeches and broadcasts to the contrary, Kronstadt's shortage of food supplies is plainly visible in Izvestiia (see "They Refute the Slander" and "Apportionment"; Pravda, pp. 156, 169-170). The rebel leaders were unwilling to throw away this opportunity to receive food aid, if assistance were to become necessary.
Second, it is likely that Kronstadt's leaders no longer considered the Socialist Revolutionaries to be as great a threat to Kronstadt's goal of a free republic as they were in 1917 and 1918. It would have been well reported by Soviet sources that the White forces in Russia had been crushed and the western governments pacified. Furthermore, time had made Russia's participation in any renewed war with Germany a dead issue.
Also, since many people in Kronstadt were in fact former members of the SR and Menshevik Parties, and since Pukhov points out that agitation was regularly carried on by the SRs and Mensheviks in Petrograd at that time, the Committee likely knew of the changes in the Right Socialist Revolutionaries' positions which are visible in Volia Rossii (Pukhov, pp. 28-29, 34). Because of its editors' betrayal by the White forces in 1918, its perceived abandonment by the Entente in favor of the Bolsheviks, and also the socialist nature of the new German government, the Entente's harsh attitude toward Germany (see for example No 127, p. 1, Pered londonskoi konferentsiei). It missed no opportunity to attack its former allies from among the Constitutional Democrats and White commanders (a particularly interesting example being No 2, p. 1, Vse Malo). Because of all this, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee likely believed that the Right Socialist Revolutionaries had neither the desire nor the ability to continue their political line of 1917, and were less of a threat to Kronstadt's goals than the Communists. In fact, Kronstadt and the SRs now found that they had a common interest -- opposition against the Communists.
The editors of Volia Rossii, for their part, no longer believing in a role for intervention and non-socialist groups, rested all their hopes for the immediate overthrow of Communism on their most fundamental populist beliefs in the revolutionary character of the laboring masses. In its commentaries on the uprising and interviews with the Kronstadt refugees, Volia Rossii showed how the Kronstadt events and Kronstadt rebels demonstrated the correctness of its beliefs, that is: that Communism would very soon be overthrown at the laborers' initiative, and that the laborers were also opposed to the SRs non-Communist enemies. In a serialized history of the uprising which is closely related to the later Pravda, Volia Rossii quotes extensively from such articles as "What We Are Fighting For," one of the definitive Kronstadt arguments against the Communists, and quotes the slogan, "In Kronstadt there is neither Kolchak, nor Denikin, nor Yudenich. In Kronstadt there are laboring folk" (Volia Rossii, NoNo 160-162, p. 3, "Istoriia Kronshtadtskago vozstaniia"). A summary of Volia Rossii's position, and of what they believed Kronstadt wanted, is found in the lead editorial from March 30, 1921, which states:
"...the [SR] party in its struggle against Bolshevism, with a single spirit rejects joint work with non-socialist parties. And is it necessary to say that the events of the recent period, and in particular the Kronstadt Uprising, sharply underline the correctness of the party's point of view?
The Russian laboring masses have begun to carry on, with armed force, a struggle with Bolshevism, but they reject in this struggle joint work with ... parties with goals and psychologies foreign to them" (Volia Rossii, No 165, p. 1, "Bolsheviki i es-ery").
Volia Rossii also argues repeatedly that the Communists must soon lose power, and that the economic and political concessions forced on them by Kronstadt and the general laboring movement not only cannot stop their fall, but will even speed it. Yakovenko, Vice-President of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee and a close comrade of Petrichenko, best summarizes this view when he says in an interview, "The Communists have reached the end. I answer everyone, before this year is out, the Communists will be out" (No 187, p. 1, "Beseda s kronshtadtsami"). The Socialist Revolutionaries were eager to greet the Kronstadters as fellow opponents of the Communists, and as plain laboring people, many of whose actions and written and oral statements supported Volia Rossii's positions.
This new accord was not perfect however. While Kronstadt and the Right Socialist Revolutionaries had found a common interest against the Communists, and certain political conflicts been removed, other questions still separated the two groups. The issue of the Constituent Assembly is one such question particularly apparent in Truth. It shows both the continuing conflict between the two groups and Volia Rossii's efforts to convince its readers that this conflict did not represent an insurmountable difference.
Izvestiia takes a strong, anti-Constituent Assembly position. In "Stages of Revolution," Lamanov states that before the October Revolution, "[c]apitalists and landowners... hoped to seat themselves firmly on the toilers' neck, having duped the latter in the Constituent Assembly to which Kerensky was slowly but surely leading" (Pravda, p. 127). When the members of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee were asked by "Zritel," a reporter from Volia Rossii, why they did not support the Constituent Assembly after the Revolution, they replied that it would have simply been taken over by the Communists, using set lists of candidates presented to the voters (Pravda, p. 31).
"Zritel's" question was not rhetorical, not intended to show that the Constituent Assembly was disliked by the common people who Volia Rossii took Kronstadt to represent. The newspaper was, in fact, strongly in favor of a constituent assembly. The "proclamation of the working socialists of the Nevsky region" printed in Izvestiia (Pravda, p. 7) states:
"We know who is afraid of the Constituent Assembly. It is those who will not be able to steal, but instead will be brought to answer before the people's representatives for fraud, theft and all criminality. Down with the hated Communists! Down with Soviet power! Long live the All-National Constituent Assembly."
This proclamation is also printed in Volia Rossii (No 163, p. 3, "Vozzvaniia sotsialistov v dni petrogradskikh i kronshtadtskikh sobytii"). There it is ascribed to "the Petrograd Committee of Social Democrats (mensheviks) and Petrograd socialist groups." This reference to unnamed "socialist groups" suggests that the Socialist Revolutionaries may have played a direct role in the original publication of the announcement. In any case, the relationship between Volia Rossii and the Mensheviks was very close. The Mensheviks do not undergo the harsh attacks that Volia Rossii directs against the Kadets and White commanders, and Sotsialisticheskii Vestnik, the organ of the Menshevik Party abroad, even advertises in Volia Rossii (see for instance No 224, p. 6). The proclamation's call for a Constituent Assembly is equivalent to one by Volia Rossii itself.
Volia Rossii therefore found it necessary to explain why the Kronstadt sailors and their leaders, who opposed the Constituent Assembly, were not equivalent to those guilty of "fraud, theft and all criminality." As with other situations in which the workers and peasants do not act according to the Right Socialist Revolutionaries' expectations, they explain this in part by pointing to the corrupting influence of Communist agitation (see for example the explanation of the Petrograd workers' failure to come to Kronstadt's aid, in Volia Rossii, No 164, p. 1, "Petrograd i Kronshtadt"). In response to Kronstadt's rejection of the Constituent Assembly, Volia Rossii states:
"For three years, by the use of "lists," the Bolsheviks succeeded in thus perverting the very idea of free elections... [The workers] feared that..., with Communist domination in the Soviets, even the Constituent Assembly, elected by Communist methods, would not be a constituent assembly, but a new variety of commissarocracy." (Pravda, pp. 31-32)
Volia Rossii states that Kronstadt, having had its beliefs twisted by the Communists, was approaching democracy in small steps through new Soviet elections, rather than by the direct path of the Constituent Assembly. It further diminishes Kronstadt's error by stating that the sailors, cut off from locations where the workers were calling for a Constituent Assembly, nevertheless "in their own way, defended the right of the people to self-government and self-regulation. They wished to advance, and were already advancing, toward that people's self-government by different paths" (Pravda, p. 35) from those of the other workers, but "their goal... was one and the same, the emancipation of the people. Because of this, independent of how they clothed the demand for, 'power of the people,' the entire Kronstadt movement possessed a great attractive force" (Pravda, p. 35). Volia Rossii justifies its difference with Kronstadt over the Constituent Assembly by claiming that because of Communist agitation and Kronstadt's isolation, the sailors and their leaders were somewhat misled about the proper methods, but that fundamentally they desired the same goal as the Socialist Revolutionaries.
The original authors and editors of Pravda o Kronshtadte, or The Truth about Kronstadt, varied from common sailors of the Baltic Fleet to former government ministers. They were all political descendants of the Russian Populism of the late 19th Century, but had split into separate branches under the influence of different interests and beliefs, and of such events as World War I. The people of Kronstadt were radical democrats, and closely related to the Union of Socialist-Revolutionaries Maximalists, which provided them with one of their leading figures, Anatolii Lamanov. The editors of Volia Rossii were Right Socialist Revolutionaries, liberal-oriented and inclined to make concessions to and alliances with groups which Kronstadt rejected. Stepan Petrichenko, President of Kronstadt's Provisional Revolutionary Committee, was influenced to a degree by Socialist Revolutionary ideas, but was primarily a representative, and example, of the Kronstadt sailors who he led.
Political differences related to the authors' views of Socialism and of the proper role of non-socialist forces, along with other issues such as support or opposition for the war, helped to make Kronstadt and the Right Socialist Revolutionary-led Provisional Government violent enemies in 1917. In 1921, however, in the context of a combination of changed internal and external realities, changed views and changed interests, a mutual, Communist enemy provided them with a basis for cooperation. Kronstadt decided that its former enemies were no longer as dangerous as they had once been, and that the potential need for food supplies required that Socialist Revolutionary overtures not be completely rejected. For its part, Volia Rossii found that, despite the necessity of explaining continuing disagreements over issues such as the Constituent Assembly, the rebels were important as sources of actions, and oral and written statements which supported Volia Rossii's Right SR beliefs.
Glossary
arshin
0.71 meters
Baltflot
the Baltic Fleet
Cheka
the secret police
Gorkommuna
Town Commune
Gorprodkom
Town Produce Committee
Ispolkom
Executive Committee
Kadets
Constitutional Democrats
katorga
hard labor prison regime
makhorka
low grade tobacco
Narodniks
Populists
Okhrana/Okhranka
tsarist secret police
Oprichnina
military and administrative elite under Tsar Ivan IV ("The Terrible")
Politotdels
Political Departments
politruk
head of the politotdel
pood
15.38 kilograms
Rabkrin
Worker-Peasant Inspection
Raikoms
Regional Committees
Retroika
Revolutionary Tribunal
SR
Socialist Revolutionary
sazhen
2.134 meters
Sevtsentropechat
North Central Publishing
spets
military "specialist" formerly in the tsarist armed forces
Uchkoms
District Election Committees
Uchredilka
(slang) Constituent Assembly
versta
1.06 kilometers
zolotnik
about 4.65 grams
THE TRUTH ABOUT KRONSTADT:
The Story of the Heroic Struggle of the People of Kronstadt Against the Communist Party Dictatorship,
with a Map of Kronstadt, Its Forts and the Gulf of Finland
CONTENTS:
Title Page
Foreword
Map
The Beginning of Worker Disturbances in Petrograd
Beginning of the Movement in Kronstadt
Formation of the Kronstadt Provisional Revolutionary Committee
Kronstadt Takes Measures of Self Defense
Kronstadters and Bolsheviks
Composition of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee
The Bolshevik Attack on Kronstadt
"The Third Revolution"
The Storm of Kronstadt
Hopes of the Kronstadters
Lies and Slander of the Bolsheviks
Kronstadt's Slogans
The Bloody Struggle
The End of Kronstadt
Consequences of the Kronstadt Uprising, and Its Meaning
Appendix: The Complete Edition of Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee
THE TRUTH ABOUT KRONSTADT
THE STORY OF THE HEROIC STRUGGLE OF THE PEOPLE OF KRONSTADT AGAINST THE COMMUNIST PARTY DICTATORSHIP, WITH A MAP OF KRONSTADT, ITS FORTS AND THE GULF OF FINLAND
* * *
APPENDIX:
The complete edition of 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of sailors, soldiers and workers of the town of Kronstadt.'
ALL PROCEEDS FROM PUBLICATION GO TO THE USE OF THE KRONSTADT REFUGEES AND THEIR FAMILIES
PUBLISHED
BY THE NEWSPAPER VOLIA ROSSII,
PRAGUE 1921
Foreword:
Publishing this book, Volia Rossii pursued a single purpose, to speak the whole truth about Kronstadt, and only the truth...
The editions of 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of sailors, soldiers and workers of the town of Kronstadt,' which are an exact mirror of the Kronstadt movement, served as the main material for the book.
In the second half of the book, we publish these editions of Kronstadt's free revolutionary newspaper as valuable materials. With this, we make it possible for every reader to verify and learn for himself the whole truth about Kronstadt.
VOLIA ROSSII
THE BEGINNING OF WORKER DISTURBANCE IN PETROGRAD
In the end of February, 1921, serious worker unrest began in Petrograd. The fuel crisis, railroad crisis and food crisis had reached an extreme. The situation was so difficult that the Soviet press itself, taking all matters into account, did not consider it necessary to hide the truth. Preparing its readers for the worst, it directly declared to the populace, "the Constituent Assembly will not save the country, nor even God, and not free trade alone."
It was plainly visible that it was not possible to continue thus, and that radical change was necessary. However, the Bolsheviks, while recognizing the inescapable nature of the situation, at the same time did not wish to make any concessions.
At this time, the situation was becoming worse. Many factories and plants were closed, and the idled workers gathered at meetings. The atmosphere, clearly hostile to Soviet power, poured out in speeches, and in resolutions passed by the meetings. At many factories, political resolutions were moved, demanding the introduction of democracy. Before long the demand for introduction of "free trade," which had been one of the main slogans at the beginning of the Petrograd movement, had dropped to second position.
The intransigent, pitiless and cynical authorities, unable to put right the economic life of the country, called for the political rebuff of the working mass.
Worker organizations demanded a fundamental change of power, some by way of freely elected soviets, and others by immediate convocation of the Constituent Assembly.
"The matter here is not one of separate hitches and breakdowns, but of a large and general flaw in our state mechanism, which won't be set right with darning and patches, but must be truly fixed," says a resolution of the Petrograd Committee of Social-Democrat Mensheviks.
The Socialist Revolutionaries and Social-Democrat Mensheviks suffered harsh persecution.
On February 22nd, meetings occurred in all the factories. On the 24th, the Trubochny, Laferme, Patronny and Baltic Factories went on strike. On February 25th, the Bolsheviks formed a Defense Committee in Petrograd, under the presidency of Zinoviev. Its purpose was the struggle with the new movement.
Before long, worker ferment had developed into open disorder. Part of the Petrograd garrison declared that it would not suppress the workers, and was disarmed. In the session of the Petrograd Soviet of February 26th, Lashevich, a prominent Communist and member of the Defense Committee and the Revolutionary War Council of the Soviet Republic, gave a report on the situation. He declared that the Trubochny Factory on Vasili Island had stepped forward as the vanguard of open action against Soviet power, and that the workers of the factory had passed a resolution pointedly opposed to Soviet power. In accordance with the decree of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, the factory was closed.
On the morning of February 24th, when a reregistration of the workers was undertaken at the Trubochny Factory, approximately 200-300 workers set off for the Laferme Factory, and from there for the Kabelny and Baltic Factories, to take the workers out on strike. A crowd of 2000-2500 workers gathered on Vasili Island. Officer cadets were sent, and clashes occurred between the troops and the unarmed crowd. Worker meetings were dispersed by troop units.
On February 25th, the ferment spread through the entire city. Workers from Vasili Island set out for the Admiralty workshops and Galernaia Gavan, and took workers from the factories. Crowds of workers gathered everywhere, and were dispersed by troops. The atmosphere was tense, and it was possible to expect momentous actions. A significant portion of the garrison was caught up in the ferment.
At the same meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, Kuzmin, Commissar of the Baltic Fleet, reported on worrisome signs in the mood of the warship crews.
The conduct of authority pushed the workers to ever more openly political actions. "Fundamental change of the entire policy of authority is necessary, and first of all, the workers and peasants must have freedom. They don't want to live by petty Bolshevik edicts; they want to decide their own fate. Comrades, support revolutionary order. Demand persistently, and in an organized fashion: Freedom for all arrested socialists and non-party workers; the repeal of martial law; freedom of speech, press and assembly for all laborers; free elections to factory committees, trade unions and soviets. Call meetings, move resolutions, send delegates to the authorities, and achieve the realization of your demands," reads a workers' proclamation from February 27th.
The Bolsheviks answered these resolutions and proclamations with arrests, and by crushing worker organizations.
On the 28th, a proclamation of the working socialists of the Nevsky region was posted. It finishes with the words, "We know who is afraid of the Constituent Assembly. It is those who will not be able to steal, but instead will be brought to answer before the people's representatives for fraud, theft and all criminality. Down with the hated Communists! Down with Soviet power! Long live the All-National Constituent Assembly."
At that time, Petrograd was already flooded with select Communist units, brought in from the provinces and fronts. The workers' movement in Petrograd was suppressed with utmost cruelty, and before long, had been crushed.
BEGINNING OF THE MOVEMENT IN PETROGRAD
Kuzmin, reporting to the Petrograd Soviet about the unsettled mood of the sailors, was not mistaken. The Petrograd events, and the suppression of the workers by cadets, made a huge impression on the revolutionary-minded sailors. They, like the Petrograd workers, understood very well that the question was not of free trade or other independent changes in the Soviet mechanism, but of the Communists, and the uncontrolled, irresponsible dictatorship of the Communist Party.
Many, having themselves been in the villages, learned there how cruelly Bolshevik power treats the peasants, how inimical it is to the countryside. In their own homes, their native villages, the sailors saw that the Bolsheviks take by force the peasants' last grain and cattle, and pitilessly destroy all who do not unquestioningly obey. They destroy with the aid of executions, arrests, secret police... By their own experience and that of their relatives, the Kronstadt sailors were convinced that the Bolsheviks, who in word call themselves the "peasant power," in deed show themselves to be the most malicious enemies of the peasants; they are enemies of the peasants, and of the workers.
The movement of sympathy and support for the Petrograd workers began among the sailors of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol, docked in Kronstadt. In 1917, these two ships, together with the Respublika, were the primary hotbeds of Bolshevism. This movement quickly captured the entire fleet, and the crews of the warships began to move resolutions of political character. In these, however, they did not oppose the Soviets, but called for their reform, insisting primarily on the absolute necessity of free voting in elections. Before long, the movement had spread from the ships' crews to the army units in Kronstadt.
On February 28th, on the Petropavlovsk, joined by the Sevastopol, a general resolution was passed. The main demand of this resolution was new elections to the Soviets. "If the Soviets would have been elected anew," said one of the leaders of the movement, a common sailor [Petrichenko in "Zritel," No 188, p. 2], "on the basis of the Constitution (Soviet), that is to say by secret ballot, then, we thought, the Communists would not have gone through, and the achievements of the October Revolution would triumph..." The sailors' movement was thus completely peaceful in character, and did not in any way express itself violently.
On the first of March, Kalinin, President of the All-Russian Executive Committee and Kuzmin, Commissar of the Baltic Fleet arrived in Kronstadt. Kalinin was met with military honors, music and banners. After this, a previously scheduled meeting took place on Anchor Square. An announcement of this meeting had been published in the official newspaper of the Kronstadt Soviet. About 16 thousand sailors, soldiers and residents of the town gathered at the meeting. It proceeded with Vasiliev, a Communist and President of the Kronstadt Ispolkom [Executive Committee], presiding. With the report of the crew representatives sent to Petrograd for clarification of the situation there, the resolution passed by the Petropavlovsk on the 28th of February was read. Also, Kalinin and Kuzmin made speeches against the resolution. Their speeches did not meet with success.
The assembly was officially the General Meeting of the 1st and 2nd Battleship Brigades. After the speeches by Kuzmin and Kalinin, the Petropavlovsk resolution was moved to a vote by the sailor Petrichenko, and passed unanimously by the entire huge assembly. "The resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority of the Kronstadt garrison. The resolution was read at a general town meeting March 1st in the presence of about 16,000 citizens and passed unanimously. Vasiliev, President of the Kronstadt Ispolkom and Comrade Kalinin vote against the resolution." Thus did Kuzmin, Commissar of the Fleet note the results of the voting in his journal.
The text of this historic document is as follows:
RESOLUTION OF THE GENERAL MEETING OF THE CREWS OF THE 1ST AND 2ND BATTLESHIP BRIGADES,
occurring March 1st, 1921
Having heard the report of the crew representatives, sent to Petrograd by the General Meeting of ships' crews for clarification of the situation there, we resolve:
1. In view of the fact that the present Soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, to immediately hold new elections to the Soviets by secret ballot, with freedom of pre-election agitation for all workers and peasants.
2. Freedom of speech and press for workers and peasants, anarchists and left socialist parties.
3. Freedom of assembly of both trade unions and peasant associations.
4. To convene not later than March 10th, 1921 a non-party Conference of workers, soldiers and sailors of the city of Petrograd, of Kronstadt, and of Petrograd province.
5. To free all political prisoners of socialist parties, and also all workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with worker and peasant movements.
6. To elect a Commission for the review of the cases of those held in prisons and concentration camps.
7. To abolish all Politotdels [Political Departments], since no single party should be able to have such privileges for the propaganda of its ideas and receive from the state the means for these ends. In their place must be established locally elected cultural-educational commissions, for which the state must provide resources.
8. To immediately remove all anti-smuggling roadblock detachments.
9. To equalize the rations of all laborers, with the exception of those in work injurious to health.
10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and also the various guards kept in factories and plants by the Communists, and if such guards or detachments are necessary, they can be chosen in military units from the companies, and in factories and plants by the discretion of the workers.
11. To give the peasants full control over their own land, to do as they wish, and also to keep cattle, which must be maintained and managed by their own strength, that is, without using hired labor.
12. We appeal to all military units, and also to the comrade cadets to endorse our resolution.
13. We demand that all resolutions be widely publicized in the press.
14. To appoint a travelling bureau for control.
15. To allow free handicraft manufacture by personal labor.
The resolution was passed by the brigade assembly unanimously with two abstentions.
Petrichenko, President of the Brigade Meeting
Perepelkin, Secretary
With passage of the resolution by the General Meeting, Kalinin, President of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, departed for Petrograd without anyone's interference.
Together with this, it was decided at the meeting to send deputies to Petrograd. The Kronstadt representatives, 30 in number, were to go to the capital to explain to the army units and factory workers what the people of Kronstadt wanted. They were also to call for the dispatch of non-party delegates from Petrograd, to be acquainted at the source with the mood and demands of the sailors and garrison. The delegation set off, but was arrested in Petrograd, and its further fate was unknown to Kronstadt.
Since the period of authority of the Kronstadt Soviet had expired, it was resolved at the meeting to call a Conference of Delegates for March 2nd, at which to discuss procedures for the new election to the Kronstadt Soviet. The Conference was to consist of representatives from ships, units, organizations, workshops and trade unions.
FORMATION OF THE KRONSTADT PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
On March 2nd, at the House of Education in Kronstadt (The former Engineering School), delegates gathered from all listed organizations. Elections for the Conference took place on the basis of an announcement in the official newspapaper. Moreover, in accordance with established custom, among those speaking on the tasks and goals of the Conference were... Communists, elected with the others to the body of delegates. They were, however, in the minority in the Conference, the majority consisting of non-party delegates.
The assembly was opened by the sailor Petrichenko. Then, elections to the Presidium of the Conference took place, by way of open voting.
One member of this Presidium recounted, "The Conference consisted exclusively of sailors, soldiers, workers and employees of Soviet organizations. No kind of general, colonel or any kind of officer was even thought of. The 'Soviet' character of the meeting sprung to the eye..."
The first orators at the assembly were, once again, Vasiliev, President of the Kronstadt Ispolkom, and Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot [The Baltic Fleet]. The day's main topic was the question of new elections to the Kronstadt Soviet on fairer foundations. This was all the more important as the authority of the old Soviet, composed almost entirely of Communists, had already expired. The speeches by Kuzmin and Vasiliev not only did not pacify the Conference, but on the contrary, poured oil on the fire.
Kuzmin assured the delegates that all in Petrograd was calm, tried to frighten them with danger from Poland, spoke about dual power, and so forth and so on. At the end of his speech he declared that the Communists would not withdraw from power voluntarily, and would fight to their last forces.
Vasiliev's speech was in the exact same spirit and tone.
These statements showed the Conference that Kuzmin and Vasiliev could not be trusted, and that it was imperative to restrain them, having first removed them from the assembly. This was all the more urgent as the order to take weaponry away from the Communists had still not been given, the soldiers were frightened by the commissars, and the latter still had telephones at their disposal.
Kuzmin and Vasiliev were removed from the assembly. But all the other Communist participants were allowed to remain, and to continue in the work of the Conference. They were recognized as the same empowered representatives of their units and organizations as the other delegates.
Following this, by proposal of Petrichenko, the resolution adopted at the previous day's meeting was read, and was also adopted by the Conference with an overwhelming majority of votes.
After this, the Conference had intended, on the basis of the resolution, to enter into substantive work. This was primarily intended to be the development of conditions for correct and free elections to the Soviet, for even the Communists themselves pointed out that the authority of the Kronstadt Soviet had ended.
But at that time, information of a disturbing character was received. It was reported that a substantial number of Communists, with small arms and machine guns, were supposedly occupying buildings and moving toward the location of the Conference. In fact, by the testimony of one of the authoritative leaders of the Kronstadt Movement, at that very time the cadets of the Higher Political School were leaving Kronstadt and, with Dulkis the chekist in command, heading for Krasnaya Gorka.
Because of the rumors, a very nervous atmosphere arose, and the Conference, remembering the threats of Kalinin, Kuzmin and Vasiliev, decided to form a Provisional Revolution Committee. In view "of the lack of time to define the structure of the Committee, it was decided that the Presidium and President of the Conference would take on themselves the duties of the Revolutionary Committee and its President."
This decision was passed unanimously, and the Presidium, with Petrichenko as head, became the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which was also assigned to attend to arranging elections to the Soviet. The Committee selected as its provisional place of residence the battleship Petropavlovsk, on which were also housed Kuzmin and Vasiliev, who had been restrained.
It is necessary to note that just after the meeting on the first of March, the Kronstadt Communists began preparing for military action and actively arming themselves, demanding that the artillery magazine issue rifles, cartridges and machine guns to the Communist cells. These demands, signed by Novikov, Commissar of the Fortress, were fulfilled unquestioningly. Therefore, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee's caution was fully understandable.
The truth is, of two thousand Communists listed in Kronstadt, "the majority were," by the words of one of the members of the Prov. Rev. Com. [Petrichenko in "Zritel," No 188, p. 2], "'paper Communists,' who had joined the party for advantage."
"When the first events occured," said the same member of the Rev. Com., "the main mass forsook the Communist ringleaders and joined us. The ringleaders themselves, with a small quantity of cadets, couldn't hope for the possibility of gaining the upper hand against us. Therefore, they abandoned the thought of armed struggle, and crossed to the forts. They moved from one fort to another, but didn't meet with any sympathy. The cadets who were in Kronstadt crossed over together with the Communists, first to the forts, and then to Krasnaya Gorka. Some of the Communist ringleaders simply fled, and along with them the Commander of the Kronstadt Fortress."
KRONSTADT TAKES MEASURES OF SELF DEFENSE
The peaceful character of the Kronstadt movement was not in any doubt or question.
Kronstadt advanced its demands in the spirit of the Soviet Constitution.
In the fortress itself, power passed into the hands of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee without a single shot, by the unanimous decision and vote of the representatives of the sailors, soldiers, workers and Soviet employees.
And none the less, the Bolshevik authorities had already issued against Kronstadt a blatantly provocative order, signed by Lenin and Trotsky. This order of March 2nd calls the Kronstadt movement "a mutiny by the former general Kozlovsky." The order begins with the assertion that the mutiny was supposedly created by the hands of "French counter-intelligence." "On February 28th," says this shameless document, "a Black Hundred/SR [Socialist Revolutionary] resolution was passed (on the vessel Petropavlovsk)."
"On March 2nd," asserts this report by Lenin and Trotsky, amazing in its cynicism, "by morning, the group of the former general Kozlovsky (Commander of the Artillery) had already appeared openly on the scene. The former general Kozlovsky and three officers, whose names have not been determined, openly acted in the roles of mutineers."
"With this," said Lenin and Trotsky, "the meaning of events is fully explained. Behind an SR cover stands yet again a tsarist general. In view of all this, the Soviet of Labor and Defense declares: 1) the former general Kozlovsky and his associates to be outlawed; 2) the town of Petrograd and Petrograd Province to be in a state of siege; 3) all power in the Petrograd consolidated region to be placed with the Petrograd Defense Committee."
In its turn, the Defense Committee published an order throughout Petrograd Province, ending with the words, "in event of street gatherings, troops are ordered to act with armed force. Opposition is to be answered with execution on the spot."
Lenin and Trotsky were not greatly bothered by the fact that the former general Kozlovsky, like all the other generals, had been in service with the Bolsheviks. While he was with them, they didn't notice that he was a tsarist general. Kronstadt had to revolt for the Bolsheviks to discover a tsarist general in their very own "spets".
There were very few spetsi at all in Kronstadt, and by the words of Kozlovsky himself, no one listened to their opinions and they played no role. The Bolsheviks needed all these lies solely in order to discredit the Kronstadt movement in the eyes of workers, as being supposedly "counterrevolutionary." Later, after the fall of Kronstadt, a correspondent of a Russian socialist newspaper asked members of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, "What role, in fact, did General Kozlovsky play?" Several people answered almost in one voice, "You saw him!" and all broke out laughing.
General Kozlovsky himself related the following about his role ["Zritel," No 195, p. 2]. "The Communists used my name in order to represent the uprising in Kronstadt in the light of a White Guard conspiracy only because I was the single 'general' located in the fortress. Along with me, they made reference to my aide in the artillery defense of Kronstadt, the officer Burkser, and others of my aides, like Kostromitinov and Shirmanovsky, one of whom was a simple draftsman. They, by their own individual qualities, were unable to play any kind of role in the movement."
It is not superfluous to add to this, that when the Provisional Revolutionary Committee was formed, the Commander of the Fortress, a Bolshevik, fled. By the existing regulations, his duties were to be fulfilled by the Commander of the Artillery, that is, by General Kozlovsky. In view of the fact that he declined, considering that since the Revolutionary Committee was now in control the former regulations were no longer valid, the Committee, having considered the matter, named from among the body of officers Solovianov as Commander of the Fortress. Kozlovsky was assigned to direct only the technical work of the artillery, as a specialist.
This then was the role of Kozlovsky, whom the Bolsheviks, moving against Kronstadt with all the "spetsi" inherited by them from the tsarist structure, tried to represent as "leader of the mutiny." Particularly comical was the reference by Lenin and Trotsky to "three officers," whose names they couldn't even give...
Soon after this order declaring the Kronstadt rebels outlawed, threats began to rain down from Trotsky and the Defense Committee, "to shoot them like grouse," and so on and so forth.
Kronstadt was required to take measures for self defense. In the presence of threats by the Bolshevik authorities, the Provisional Revolutionary Commitee instructed military specialists to come to the Petropavlovsk on March 3rd at 4 P.M., for discussion of measures necessary for defense of the fortress. At that conference it was decided that the Committee would move to the "House of Soviets," and the staff of the defense to the fortress headquarters. In the last several days there had been several other joint sessions of the Prov. Rev. Com. with military specialists, a Military Soviet of Defense was selected, and a plan established for the defense of the fortress.
To all recommendations by the military specialists to go on the offensive, open military action and use the convenient moment of initial Bolshevik confusion, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee [Petrichenko in "Zritel," No 187, p. 2] answered with decisive refusal. "Our uprising was founded on the basis that we didn't want to spill blood. Why draw blood, when even without that everyone will understand that our cause is correct. However the Bolsheviks attempt to deceive the people, all will now know that if Kronstadt has risen, it means it is for the people's causes, and it means it is against the Communists. All know that it cannot be otherwise, for under the Communists there are rights only for Communists, and not for the people."
Members of the Prov. Rev. Com. declared this later. This entire unusual "uprising" rested on the deep faith of the sailors that they were supported by all Russia, and first of all by Petrograd.
The movement blazed up spontaneously. Had it been the result of an earlier prepared plan, it would not of course have begun in the first days of March. At the cost to the people of Kronstadt of waiting a bit longer, Kronstadt, liberated from the surrounding ice, would have become an unapproachable fortress, possessing also a powerful fleet, a terrible threat to Petrograd. There was no uprising, as we are accustomed to understand that word. There was a spontaneously ignited movement of peaceful character, catching an entire town, garrison and fleet.
Kronstadt answered the Bolshevik ultimatum to, "give up the instigators," retract its demands and so on with refusal. Then the Bolsheviks declared the people of Kronstadt to be outlaws, and began to concentrate troops. Kronstadt was forced either to submit, or to defend itself. It chose the latter.
And just at this point began that which is called "the Kronstadt Uprising."
Trotsky and the Defense Committee actively pulled in, from all directions, the most trustworthy officer cadets and Communist regiments. The command of all forces destined to act against Kronstadt was given to Tukhachevsky, Commander of the 7th Army [and a former lieutenant in the tsarist army (Avrich, p. 149)]. All the "spetsi," all the famous figures of the tsarist structure, now serving the Bolsheviks, feverishly worked on the formation of a plan of siege and attack on Kronstadt.
The defenders of Kronstadt, slandered by their cynical adversary, had at their disposal the insignificant Kozlovsky, who played no role, and a few third-rank, unnoticed specialists.
KRONSTADTERS AND BOLSHEVIKS
Meanwhile, authentic revolutionary enthusiasm ruled in besieged Kronstadt. At the same time that the Provisional Revolutionary Committee was formed, its organ Izvestiia began publication. Kronstadt lived a tense and exuberant life. Full order was established, and power was in the hands of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
On March 4th, at 6 P.M., there occurred a session of the Conference of Delegates from the military units of the garrison and from trade unions, for by-elections to the Prov. Rev. Com. 202 deputies were present at this assembly. The majority arrived straight from work.
Twenty candidates were nominated and the following ten elected: Vershinin, Perepelkin, Kupolov, Ososov, Valk, Romanenko, Pavlov, Boikov, Patrushev and Kilgast.
A report by Petrichenko on the work being carried out by the Prov. Rev. Com was met with stormy approval by the Conference.
"On the question of arming the workers, the Conference mandated the universal arming of the working masses," says 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' "This was done to the loud approval of the workers themselves, and exclamations of 'Victory or Death.' The workers were assigned the internal guard of the town, as sailors and soldiers are bursting for active work in the combat units."
Next, it was decided to newly elect the administrations of all unions within three days, and also that of the Soviet of Unions. The latter was the leading organization for workers, and would be in constant contact with the Prov. Rev. Com.
All the forts came out in support of Kronstadt, with the exception of Krasnoflotskii (formerly Krasnaya Gorka), which had been captured by the chekists who fled there from Kronstadt on March 2nd.
As was shown above, the people of Kronstadt left almost all the Communists at liberty in the first days. The only ones restrained were those who attempted to flee Kronstadt or were captured by patrols, and also Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot, Vasiliev, President of the Ispolkom, Batis, head of the Politotdel of Baltflot, and several other persons.
Despite this complete nobility of conduct by the people of Kronstadt, the Petrograd Defense Committee arrested as hostages a mass of people in Petrograd, among whom very many were completely non-participant in the movement. And besides this, the Petrograd families of Kronstadters were arrested.
The Defense Committee brought this all to Kronstadt's attention by means of leaflets thrown from airplanes. "The Defense Committee," it says in these leaflets, "declares all those arrested to be hostages for those comrades restrained by the mutineers in Kronstadt, and in particular for N. N. Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot, for Comrade Vasiliev, President of the Kronstadt Soviet, and for other Communists." "If even one hair falls from the heads of the restrained comrades," declared the Bolshevist Defense Committee in Petrograd, "the named hostages will answer for this with their heads."
To this declaration, disgraceful in its cruelty, 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' made the following elucidation. "This is the spite of the powerless. Jeering over innocent families will not add new laurels to the comrade Communists. In any case, not by this path will they hold the power which is being torn from their hands by the workers, sailors and soldiers of Kronstadt."
"Considering for various reasons why a person became a Communist," a prominent member of the Prov. Rev. Com. [Petrichenko in "Zritel," No 189, p. 1] later said, "in the great majority of cases we left them at their work. We even allowed them to organize their group of Communists. May they be organized for action, and may they learn how their comrades in confinement are fed and cared for."
"The truth is," he added, "it should be said that despite our attitude toward the Communists, they, remaining in Kronstadt, aided the chekists. We declared, and took as our slogan, the equal rights of all citizens, independent of their political beliefs. Be a person a Communist or of other beliefs, he must have the right to vote. And we fulfilled that."
"Under us, not one Communist was executed," the people of Kronstadt proudly declared.
COMPOSITION OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
In Kronstadt itself at this time, morale was rising ever higher. The basic demand, moving through all articles of the leading publication, through all resolutions passed by individual units and forts, remained exactly the same, "the establishment of genuine power of freely elected Soviets," and liberation from under the "Communist yoke." Every day, a great number of repentant letters from individual Communists and entire groups were printed in 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.,' with admissions of their errors and declarations of departure from the Communist Party.
Besides this, the besieged did not wish to believe that Bolshevik power could open military action against them. Numerous letters from rank and file Communists who were leaving the party, speak with horror of this possibility, difficult for them to conceive.
In these days, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee addressed radio appeals exclusively to the workers, soldiers and sailors of Russia. In these, it refuted the lies about Kronstadt which were spread by the Bolsheviks. It told its listeners, "All power in Kronstadt is exclusively in the hands of revolutionary sailors, soldiers and workers, and not of White Guards with some General Kozlovsky at head, as the slanderous broadcasts from Moscow would have you believe."
"Do not delay, comrades. Lend your support, and enter into firm contact with us. Demand that your non-party representatives be allowed through to Kronstadt. Only they will tell you the entire truth, and dispel the provocative rumors of bread from Finland and plots by the Entente. Long live the revolutionary proletariat and peasantry! Long live the power of freely elected Soviets!"
At the same time, 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' printed all the declarations, appeals and broadcasts by the Soviet authorities, full of lies and slander against the Kronstadt movement. Izvestiia printed these broadcasts, ultimatums and appeals as an example of how the Bolsheviks were deceiving not only soldiers and sailors, but also members of the Petrograd Soviet.
The Bolsheviks particularly insistently broadcast the lie that generals and Black Hundreds were leading the uprising. The people of Kronstadt placed against this the following "Appeal to Workers, Soldiers and Sailors."
"On March 2nd, we, the people of Kronstadt, threw off the damned Communist yoke and raised the red flag of the Third Revolution of laborers. Soldiers, seamen and workers, Revolutionary Kronstadt calls You. We know that they lead You into delusion and don't tell the truth about events here, where we are all ready to give our lives for the holy cause of worker and peasant liberation. They try to convince You that White generals and priests are with us. In order to put an end to this once and for all, we bring to Your attention that the Provisional Revolutionary Committee consists of the following fifteen members.
1. Petrichenko--a senior clerk on the battleship Petropavlovsk;
2. Yakovenko--a telephone operator at the Kronstadt Regional Communications Service;
3. Ososov--a machinist on the battleship Sevastopol;
4. Arkhipov--a head machinist;
5. Perepelkin--an electrician on the battleship Sevastopol;
6. Parushev--a senior electrician on the battleship Petropavlosk;
7. Kupolov--a senior doctor's assistant;
8. Vershinin--a seaman/combatant on the battleship Sevastopol;
9. Tukin--an artisan in the Electro-Mechanical Factory;
10. Romanenko--a watchman in the repair docks;
11. Oreshin--Director of the Third Labor School;
12. Valk--an artisan in the Sawmill;
13. Pavlov--a worker in the Mine Workshops;
14. Boikov--Director of the Transport String at the Admin. of Construction of the Fortress;
15. Kilgast--an ocean navigator.
These are our generals: Brusilov, Kamenev and the rest, and it is the gendarmes Trotsky and Zinoviev who hide the truth from You. Comrades, look about and see what they have done to You, what they are doing to Your wives, brothers and children. Are You really going to suffer and perish under the yoke of the oppressors?"
THE BOLSHEVIK ATTACK ON KRONSTADT
Thus, the people of Kronstadt did not desire the beginning of military action. They left the Communists at liberty. They decisively rejected any aid from the "non-left socialist parties." They chose a Provisional Revolutionary Committee for the organization of new elections to the Kronstadt Soviet of Workers, Sailors and Soldiers, the authority of the latter having already run out. They called for the dispatch of a delegation from Petrograd, chosen by workers, sailors and soldiers, that it might learn the true goals of the Kronstadt movement, and be convinced of the lies raised against the people of Kronstadt by the Bolshevist Defense Committee.
In answer to these demands, the Bolsheviks declared a blockade of Kronstadt, and concentrated a large quantity of troops in Petrograd, its outskirts, and also Oranienbaum, Krasnaya Gorka and other coastal locations. The Prov. Rev. Com. reports that on the March 7th, "at 6:45 P.M., the Communist batteries in Sestroretsk and Lisy Nos opened fire first on the Kronstadt forts. The forts accepted the challenge, and quickly forced the batteries to become silent. Following this, Krasnaya Gorka opened fire, receiving worthy answer from the battleship Sevastopol."
On this sinister day of the opening of military action, besieged Kronstadt and its leaders did not forget that the day of its first bombardment was, at the same time, the Day of Working Women! "Today is a worldwide holiday, the Day of Working Women," says besieged Kronstadt's broadcast to the working women of the world. "We, the people of Kronstadt, under the thunder of cannons, under the explosions of shells sent at us by the enemies of the laboring people, the Communists, send our fraternal greetings to you, the working women of the world."
"We send greetings from rebellious Red Kronstadt, from the Kingdom of Liberty. Let our enemies try to destroy us. We are strong; we are undefeatable."
"We wish you fortune, to all the sooner win freedom from all oppression and coercion."
"Long live the Free Revolutionary Working Woman."
"Long live the Worldwide Social Revolution..."
This call, greetings from bombarded Kronstadt, was completely characteristic for the rebels. No less characteristic is the following address by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, printed in No 6 of 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' under the title, "May all the World Know!"
"And so, the first shot has rung out. Bloody Fieldmarshal Trotsky, standing to his waist in the fraternal blood of laborers, opened fire first on Revolutionary Kronstadt, risen against the Communist government for the establishment of true Soviet power. Without a single shot, without a drop of blood, we, soldiers, seamen and workers of Kronstadt, threw down the Communist dominion, and even spared their lives. They desire to once again, under threat of bombardment, tie us to their authority."
"Not wanting bloodshed, we proposed that non-party delegates be sent from the Petrograd proletariat, that they might learn that there is a struggle for power in Kronstadt. But the Communists hid this from the Petrograd workers, and opened fire. Such is the usual answer of the sham worker-peasant government to the demands of the laboring people."
"May all the world of workers know that we, protectors of Soviet power, stand guard over the victories of the Social Revolution. We will be victorious, or die under the ruins of Kronstadt, struggling for the bloody cause of the laboring people. The workers of all the world will judge. The blood of innocents is on the heads of the Communist beasts, who are drunk with power."
"Long live Soviet power!"
The lead article in 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' from March 8th makes the following analysis of this fateful "First Shot." "They began the bombardment of Kronstadt. Well, so be it; we're ready. We will measure our strengths."
"They rush to act, and yes, they are forced to hurry. The laborers of Russia, despite all the Communist lies, understand what a great endeavor of liberation from three years' slavery is being created in revolutionary Kronstadt. The butchers are unnerved. The victim of their shameless bestiality, Soviet Russia, is slipping from their torture chamber, and with her, dominion over the laboring people is slipping finally from their criminal hands."
"The Communist government will send an SOS. The weeklong existence of free Kronstadt is proof of their powerlessness. One moment more and the worthy answer of our glorious revolutionary ships and forts will sink the ship of the Soviet pirates. They are forced into battle with revolutionary Kronstadt, which has raised the banner 'Power to Soviets, and not Parties.'"
It is important to spend as much time as possible on the exposition of the psychology of the Kronstadt garrison and its elected leaders in those first moments, those first days of the war which had begun between the Bolshevik authorities and Kronstadt. 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' alots its columns almost entirely to the exposition of the goals for which Kronstadt struggled. The newspaper contains practically no information on the violent struggle already begun. On the day of the bombardment, there is practically no chronicle of it. All is dedicated to the burning theme, "We and They," that is "we" of Kronstadt, and "they" the Bolsheviks.
In those days it was as if Kronstadt was hurrying to show its true face, to clearly outline the people's movement which had risen there pure and unmixed. In its articles and appeals is felt the sailor's speech, sailor turns of phrase and comparisons.
And over all this feverish revolutionary atmosphere hung the great, all-forgiving spirit of the age old Russian liberation movement. Kronstadt was great spirited. It was proud that in it, executions did not occur, that there was no coercion, that it rested on the freely expressed will of the entire laboring populace. Under the thunder of the bombarding cannons, it sent greetings to laborers, and called the entire proletariat and peasantry to solidarity.
And Bolshevik authority attempted to portray these people as "servitors of Capital," "lackeys of the Entente," and so on and so forth!
And only then, when the Kronstadters were forced to argue against the completely unbelievable lies and slander of an enemy which had decided to wipe them from the face of the earth, did they speak sharply, not sparing fully weighted and juicy definitions of the hated Bolshevik authority.
In this moving argument of victim with torturer, Kronstadt tried fervently to expose its true wishes, its true, cherished aspirations.
"THE THIRD REVOLUTION"
In those days, the people of Kronstadt defined their struggle with the Communists as a struggle for the Third Revolution.
The word has been found. Henceforward, it will enter into the consciousness of those masses, which until now still followed the Bolsheviks, believing that the October Revolution was the "Second Revolution."
"Here," they declare in the article 'What We Are Fighting For,' "a great new revolutionary step has been taken. Here has been raised the banner of a rebellion for liberation from the three year violence and oppression of Communist dominion, which has eclipsed the three-hundred year yoke of monarchism. Here in Kronstadt has been laid the first stone of the Third Revolution, which is breaking the last fetters from the laboring masses, and opening a wide new path for socialist creativity. This new revolution stirs the laboring masses of both East and West. It is an example of the new socialist construction, opposed to bureaucratic Communist 'creativity.' It convinces the laboring masses abroad, by the testimony of their own eyes, that everything created here until now by the will of workers and peasants was not socialism."
The people of Kronstadt did not develop the programs of this new socialist "construction," but they wanted to lay its first cornerstone. They emancipated the people, and expressed their will. And they came to this emancipation by the path to which they were most accustomed after three years of Soviet power, by freely elected Soviets.
"The present Revolution gives the laborers the possibility to finally have their own freely chosen Soviets, working without any and all coercive party pressure, and to reform the bureaucratic trade unions into free societies of workers, peasants and the laboring intelligentsia. At long last the police stick of the Communist autocracy is broken."
This then is the most immediate program, these are the goals, for which at 6 hours 45 minutes in the evening on March 5th, 1921, the Bolshevik authorities began the bombardment of Kronstadt...
THE STORM OF KRONSTADT
Following the bombardment which had been opened on the March 7th from the batteries of Sestroretsk and Lisy Nos, there came an attempt by the Bolsheviks to storm the forts of the fortress. The attack came from both South and North. The Commander of the Northern Group, Kazansky, in conversation with a Bolshevist correspondent declared that, "the first attack by troops took place already on March 8th. The group consisted exclusively of cadets. Fort No 7 was taken in battle, but our related losses were so significant, and the group itself so small, that the adversary succeeded in driving us from the fort."
But in No 8 of 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.,' these first horrifying Bolshevik attempts to throw Communists dressed in white shrouds (of a color protective on snow) across the ice to storm Kronstadt were described in the following manner. "We did not want to spill fraternal blood, and we did not fire a single shot until they forced us to do so. We were forced to defend the rightful cause of the laboring people, and to fire. We were forced to fire at our own brothers, sent to certain death by Communists who feast on the people's bill. And at that time, their ringleaders, Trotsky, Zinoviev and the rest, were sitting on soft chairs in the warm, lit rooms of tsarist palaces, discussing how the quicker and better to cover rebel Kronstadt in blood."
"To your misfortune a snowstorm arose, and an impenetrable night approached. None the less, taking nothing into consideration, the Communist butchers drove you across the ice. They drove you from behind, with detachments of machine gun armed Communists. Many of you perished that night, on the huge, icy expanse of the Gulf of Finland. At sunrise, when the snowstorm had quieted, only pathetic remnants reached us, hungry and exhausted, barely moving your feet, dressed in white shrouds. By early morning about a thousand of you had already been gathered, and by afternoon, a countless number. You paid dearly with your blood for this venture. And after your failure, Trotsky rolled off back to Petrograd, to once again drive new sufferers to the slaughter. Our worker-peasant blood is obtained for him cheaply enough...!"
HOPES OF THE KRONSTADTERS
Trotsky continued to pull in ever new forces. Select units - cadets, chekists and alien divisions - were brought in from all directions.
The garrison of the fortress did not increase of course. In the fortress and forts, the entire garrison was 12-14 thousand people. About 10 thousand of these were sailors. This garrison was required to defend a huge front, and a mass of forts and batteries spread across the boundless ice field of the Gulf of Finland. The Kronstadt batteries were designed for battle against an enemy coming from the sea, and in no way for one from the Russian shores. By the calculations of the military specialists, to one Kronstadt combatant, there were about five sazhen of front... [1 sazhen is equal to 2.134 meters] From the general mass of the garrison, it was possible to detail no more than three thousand bayonets for performance of active operations.
Repeated attacks by the Communists, who brought in ever new troops, insufficiency of provisions, constant sleeplessness in the cold, and unrelieved guard duty all sapped the strength of the garrison. And none the less, the people of Kronstadt not only did not lose hope of victory, but believed in it. They believed in it because they believed in the aid of Petrograd and of all Russia. To them, it seemed impossible that Petrograd, for the defense of which they had risen in rebellion, would not support them, and that Russia would not respond to their call.
One of the members of the Prov. Rev. Com. [Petrichenko in "Zritel," No 187, p. 2] later said, "We did not act for ourselves. We acted for the people, for the laborers. When they say 'yes,' we also say yes, and when 'no,' then no. It was not we who said, 'down with the Communists,' but the laborers, and not only Kronstadt, but all Russia. Only in Russia do chekists, bought with gold, harrass the people, but of course, gold won't last for long. It isn't possible to take any more. I have been about Russia a lot. I've seen the people in towns and in villages. Laborers everywhere hate the Communists."
And was there not before their eyes the worker unrest in Petrograd? Did they not know from the Soviet press itself of peasant uprisings in Siberia? In Tambov and the central provinces? In the Ukraine? They believed that this movement would spread, that the Kronstadt Uprising would shine through all Russia with a bright flame, hearten the people's masses, push them onto the path of rebellion, organize the entire dissatisfied nation... And did they not have the hope of holding out at least until icebreak on the Gulf of Finland?
These considerations were also not unknown to the Soviet authorities. They, continuing to bring in ever new echelons of troops, understood that the battle occurred not only on the ice of the Gulf of Finland, on the tragic approaches to Kronstadt, but also in the streets and factories of Petrograd and Moscow. And, bombarding Kronstadt, throwing bombs from airplanes on the peaceful populace of the besieged town, the Bolsheviks attempted to defame and slander their great-spirited adversary. They attempted to undermine the faith of the people's masses in him, to frighten the masses with the Kronstadt movement. For Kronstadt's calls possessed a powerful strength...
"In Kronstadt there is neither Kolchak, nor Denikin, nor Yudenich. In Kronstadt are laboring folk," says the 'Appeal to Comrade Workers and Peasants' in No 9 of 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' And, refuting the lies and slanders of the Bolsheviks, the appeal ends with the call, "Comrades, the people of Kronstadt have raised the banner of rebellion, and are certain that tens of millions of workers and peasants will answer their call. It cannot be that the dawn which has appeared here has not become clear for all Russia. It cannot be that the Kronstadt explosion has not made all Russia, and first of all Petrograd, shake and arise. Our enemies have filled the prisons with workers, but there are still many daring and honest ones at liberty. Arise comrades, to battle with the Communist autocracy..."
And there came response to this Kronstadt explosion. The people of Kronstadt learned of it first of all from confused Bolshevik broadcasts, in which reports of uprisings in all parts of Russia were incidentally reported among the lies and slander. They knew of it from deserted army units, escaping to Kronstadt, and from the stories of Communist prisoners, saved from death on the ice of the Gulf of Finland...
Every extra hour of Kronstadt's existence, every shot from its batteries, raised ever new enemies against the Bolsheviks. The Communists remained alone. Trotsky had to form units from cadets, chekists, and anti-smuggling detachments, and to bring in Chinese and Bashkir units.
That is why the Bolsheviks authorities so doggedly, so furiously, drove ever new battalions across the Gulf ice to certain death. They needed, come what may, to destroy Kronstadt as quickly as possible. Otherwise, Kronstadt would have blown them apart. That is why all means were acceptable to the Soviet authorities. That is why it spared no means, no violent acts, to defame and slander Kronstadt.
LIES AND SLANDER OF THE BOLSHEVIKS
It has already been shown above how the Bolsheviks used the name of the harmless Kozlovsky, who had served them faithfully and truly for three years. It has been shown how, having formed their staff nine-tenths of generals and colonels from the tsarist structure, and with their aid bombarded a revolutionary town, they spread shameless lies about "tsarist generals" supposedly located in Kronstadt.
The truth is that, in this matter, the Bolsheviks were aided not a little by the Russian emigrant and foreign press, especially the reactionary press. Krasnaia Gazeta, Izvestiia, Pravda, Kommuna and so on greedily reprinted all possible rubbish from reactionary Russian and foreign newspapers. Every kind of idiocy by the half-intelligent Burtsev, sending his unasked for greetings to the people of Kronstadt, every "donation" by the financial bigshots in Paris, all the dreams of the Guchkovs, and the foolish rumors of the foreign press, all was used by the Bolsheviks. It was used to portray the people of Kronstadt, cut off from the entire world by ice, as marionettes, by means of whom, after the inevitable "Mensheviks and SR's," "sneak in supposed Kadets [Constitutional Democrats], then Monarchists and, finally, the greedy and clutching Entente..."
In their lies, the Bolsheviks came even to the foolish assertion that the pretender to the throne, the former Great Prince Dmitri Pavlovich, was supposedly coming to Kronstadt!
The people of Kronstadt were simultaneously indignant with and amused by these absurd, and for them evident, lies. For the Red Army, and the workers of Russia, however, this grandiosely performed falsehood, this fraud, could not fail to have a corrupting influence, could not fail but to undermine trust in Kronstadt.
'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee,' was a thousand times correct in its description of Kronstadt's attitude toward the undesired joy of Russian reactionaries at the movement which had burst out there, given in the article "'Sirs' or 'Comrades.'" "You, comrades, now celebrate a great and bloodless victory over the Communist dictatorship, and your enemies celebrate with you. But your motives for joy and theirs are completely opposed. You are inspired with a burning desire to build true Soviet power, and by the noble hope of granting the worker freedom of labor and the peasant the right to control his own land and the produce of his work. They are driven by the hope of raising anew the tsarist whip, and the privilege of generals. Your interests are not the same, and your path is not theirs!"
And the article finishes with the following call. "Be vigilant. Do not allow wolves in sheep's clothing close to the helmsman's bridge..."
KRONSTADT'S SLOGANS
Kronstadt's slogans were straightforward. They led to the realization of democracy. The truth is, that the people of Kronstadt pictured the achievement of this democratic ideal by degrees, by way of new elections to the soviets, and Russia's liberation from the Communist yoke in that image. And when, after the fall of Kronstadt, a staff member of a socialist newspaper ["Zritel," No 196, p. 2] asked members of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee why the Constituent Assembly was not among Kronstadt's slogans, "Ha ha ha," answered almost all of those present. "It's like this; if there are elections to the Uchredilka [slang, Constituent Assembly], then that naturally means there will be 'lists.' It can't be otherwise."
"And once you have lists, that means 'Communists.'"
"If there are lists, then the Communists will certainly push their own through."
"But of course you can have secret balloting," I noted.
"Ha ha ha..." my interviewees again broke out laughing.
"In three and a half years we didn't see a white bread bun or a secret ballot. They just promised us all that. In fact, they didn't give a thing."
"We want to throw the Communists out. We want the Soviets to be elected by secret ballot in every region. The people on the spot know themselves who should be elected and who shouldn't. With Soviets in the localities it's possible to avoid those machinations which the Bolsheviks currently perform on most elections."
For three years, by the use of "lists," the Bolsheviks succeeded in thus perverting the very idea of free elections. Such public voting under threat of bayonets, for lists of official, ruling Communist party candidates, unknown even to the voters, brought the workers naturally to an idea. They were convinced that new elections to the Soviets, held universally, beginning with the villages, and the winning of the Soviets away from the Communists, was the first expedient step up in the struggle for complete democracy. They feared that otherwise, with Communist domination in the Soviets, even the Constituent Assembly, elected by Communist methods, would be not a constituent assembly, but a new variety of commissarocracy...
The main slogan was the demand for "freely elected Soviets." However, the best of all Kronstadt's slogans may be judged by those printed in the banner headings of 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.' during those combative days. "Trotsky's First Shot is a Communist SOS," is printed in huge letters across the entire width of the front page of Izvestiia No 6, and on the opposite side, "Soviet Power Will Free the Laboring Peasantry From the Communist Yoke."
"A Bomb Thrown at Kronstadt is a Signal For Uprising in the Communist Camp," and "The Communist Throne Has Begun to Tremble," read the banner headlines in No 8 of Izvestiia.
"All Power to Soviets, and Not Parties," "Down With Counterrevolution of the Left and Right," and "Long Live Red Kronstadt and the Power of Free Soviets;" these are typical calls from No 9 of Izvestiia.
THE BLOODY STRUGGLE
At that time, great-spirited, heroic Kronstadt was set afire by the enthusiasm of the struggle for all Russia, for the entire laboring people. Under the thunder of a cannonade, it sent its appeals and broadcasts to the workers of all the world, and to socialist parties. It rejoiced with the anniversary of the Great Revolution. It was joined in a single comradely family, creating a great miracle of the rebirth of the human spirit. And at the same time, Trotsky's troops, driven forward by chekist machine guns, came ever onward. They came dressed in white shrouds to attack this town which was demanding true Soviet power.
"Over the course of the entire night of the March 10th," reads the Summary of Operations, "the Communist artillery bombarded the fortress and forts with intensive fire from the southern and northern shores, meeting from our side an energetic repulse. Around 4 A.M., from the southern shore, Communist infantry made the first attack, but was repulsed. Communist attempts to attack continued until 8 A.M., but all were repulsed by the artillery and small arms fire of our batteries and garrison units."
These short lines raise to the eyes a terrible picture of night and early morning attacks, by units driven by the Communists to slaughter on the ice of the Gulf of Finland.
The day of March 11th passed quietly. "Thick fog interfered with firing," says the summary for the 11th. All the same, in exchanges of artillery fire that day, Kronstadt retained superiority. On that day, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee published a touching order, "to all comrade sailors, soldiers and workers, participating in the repulse of Communist attacks from March 8th through 12th."
This order reads, "Show the world of laborers, dear warriors, that however difficult may the great of struggle for freely elected Soviets become, Kronstadt has always stood, and stands now, a vigilant watch on guard of the laborers' interests."
Saturday the March 12th was the day of celebration of the Great Revolution of 1917. 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee,' went out under the banner headline: "Today is the Anniversary of the Overthrow of Autocracy, and the Eve of the Fall of Commissarocracy." And in the wonderful article, "Stages of Revolution," the people of Kronstadt advanced their favorite idea, the Third Revolution.
Having presented a clear picture of the corruption of the Soviet system, Izvestiia finished thus. "It had become stifling. Soviet Russia had turned into all-Russian katorga [hard labor prison regime]. Worker unrest and peasant uprisings testified that patience had come to an end. A toilers' uprising approached. The time to throw down the commissarocracy has arrived. Kronstadt, vigilant guard of the Social Revolution, has not overslept. It was in the first ranks of February and October. It first raised the flag of rebellion for the Third Revolution of Laborers."
The "Third Revolution of Laborers," that is Kronstadt's slogan. And these people, whom the Bolsheviks accused at that time of having dealings with the reaction and the Entente, said, "autocracy fell. The Uchredilka has passed into the land of legend. Commissarocracy too will collapse. The time has come for true power of laborers, for Soviet power..."
The people of Kronstadt formed a clear concept for themselves of the character of their uprising. They were not confused by the fact that in Petrograd itself the workers were demanding a Constituent Assembly, that around Moscow and Peter [colloquial, Petrograd] rose the glow of uprisings carrying the slogan of a new Constituent Assembly, or that in far Siberia, that slogan had already become life...
In their bricked-up fortress, surrounded by ice, they, in their own way, defended the right of the people to self-government and self-regulation. They wished to advance, and were already advancing, toward that people's self government by different paths. Their goal, however, was one and the same, the emancipation of the people. Because of this, independent of how they clothed the demand for, "power of the people," the entire Kronstadt movement possessed a great attractive force. It was, moreover, selflessly pure... It is shown as such in the pages of 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee'...
In the night from the 12th to the 13th, the Communists attacked from the South. Again the night attacks, again the white overalls, and again was repulsed the wild storm of fresh units, ever newly arrived from provincial officer academies, from Communist regiments, from selected alien detachments.
On the 14th, Kronstadt was, as before, cheerful, strong and self-assured. And this despite the terrible, sleepless nights, when it was necessary to repulse the attacks of enemy forces, moving like specters in white shrouds over the snowbound ice surrounding the fortress and forts.
Guard duty on the ice. Rounds, patrols, pickets on the ice. In storm and blizzard, and horrible cold. What a terrifying picture...
And there on the shore, "Bloody Fieldmarshal" Trotsky and Commander of the Army Tukhachevsky gathered ever new units. They exchanged the unreliable red army soldiers for the devoted cadet oprichnina, for specially selected detachments, for Bashkir and alien regiments. There on the shore were woven thick nets of lies and deceptions, intended to seperate Kronstadt from the entire world. In important centers abroad, Riga, London, Rome and Warsaw, Soviet agents stooped to any abasement, any concession, in order to gain the aid of the Entente governments. And they wished to use this aid, from the very Entente with which the Bolshevik authorities accused Kronstadt of having relations, to blockade a free town, and prevent food from being brought it...
Kronstadt, a handful of heroes, a town lost in ice in the middle of the sea, was none the less strong and cheerful. It believed in its own rightfulness, and in the inescapability of a gigantic, all-Russian explosion. "We are the shock troops of the Revolution," it said.
And it felt a wave of energy and cheerfulness go out from itself in all directions, like a gigantic electric discharge.
THE END OF KRONSTADT
Finally, Trotsky had dug up a huge mass of troops. Unreliable units had been removed, exchanged for faithful ones. Mutinies among the soldiers (as occurred in Oranienbaum) had been suppressed. The people of Kronstadt, cheerful of spirit, had been brought to the final degree of physical exhaustion. Scattered among the forts and batteries, they had to defend giant Kronstadt, spread over the boundless ice besetting it from all sides, across which the terrible enemy might attack from South, North and East. And their weaponry was designed for defense only against... the West. There was not even an icebreaker to open the ice around the island...
Here it is imperative to point to yet one more legend dreamed up by the Bolsheviks. The Communist press frightened the populace of Petrograd, saying that Kronstadt, a peaceful and great-spirited town, had supposedly decided to bombard... the former capital.
Having opened fire first, from all sides, on the forts and on Kronstadt, the Bolsheviks didn't hesitate to send airplanes to bombard the besieged town. And at the same time, lied and slandered against it.
As was already pointed out above, the very defense system of the fortress was disadvantageous for the people of Kronstadt and advantageous for the Bolsheviks. In fact, Kronstadt's natural purpose was to be defender of Petrograd against foreign enemies attacking from the sea. Moreover, in view of the possibility of the fortress falling into the hands of an external enemy, the shore batteries and forts of Krasnaya Gorka were calculated for battle, in such event, with Kronstadt. Its rear was intentionally, with foresight to such a possibility, unfortified.
Who could ever have thought that against worker-sailor Kronstadt would advance not hostile squadrons from the West, but troops mustered by the supposed Russian Worker-Peasant Power? On the strength of these considerations alone, the rumors spread by the Bolsheviks were blatant lies. And to the question, "Why did you not succeed in forcing Krasnaya Gorka to silence?" the 'spets' Commander of the Kronstadt Artillery Defense [Kozlovsky in "Zritel," No 195, p. 2] answered, "Because we were closer to them, and they farther from us. They were on a hill, and we at the bottom. We had to shoot 'at a mountain,' and this was meaningful over long distance. You know of course that even their rounds only flew to Kosa in Kronstadt; that means we hadn't the faintest chance of hitting them. Besides, we could only shoot in clear weather, and there was always fog. They also had firing records, left from the battle during Yudenich's attack. We had absolutely nothing."
Such were the results of the battle with Krasnaya Gorka, placed ahead and to the Southwest, but all the same located under the fire of the Kronstadt forts. The distance between Petrograd and Kronstadt was one and a half times greater than between Krasnaya Gorka and Kronstadt. It is enough to glance at a map of the Gulf of Finland to understand the complete impossibility of Kronstadt firing on Petrograd. And never the less, the Bolsheviks lied, and with that lie frightened the populace of Petrograd.
The attack on Kronstadt from the rear was carried out by the Bolsheviks with stern conformation to a prepared plan. "The battle plan," said Dybenko, former Bolshevik Commissar for Naval Affairs, and appointed dictator of Kronstadt, in an interview with representatives of the Soviet press, "was worked out down to the finest details, according to the orders of Tukhachevsky, Commander of the Army, and in the field staff of the Southern Group. The brigade commanders took part in development of the plan, and then all unit leaders, starting with regimental commanders, were acquainted with it in great detail."
In a word, this entire tsarist general staff was not on the side of the Kronstadt sailors. There was the whole lot of them, helping the Dybenkos to destroy their former comrade sailors. "On the 16th began the artillery preparation for the battle," said another butcher of Kronstadt, General Kazansky. "Firing was carried on by our side with an account, and as was later shown, the hit percentage was good. With the fall of night, we made our approach to the numbered forts. White overalls, which made us almost invisible on the mantle of snow, and the courage of the cadets, allowed us to move in columns."
From all sides, North, South, and East, cadet detachments advanced on small handfuls of Kronstadters, spread in the dark of the winter night among seperate forts lost in the ice.
By morning a number of forts were taken. Through Kronstadt's weak point, the Petrograd Gates, cadets burst into the town. Local Communists, shown mercy by the people of Kronstadt, now betrayed them, arming and acting from the rear. Kuzmin and Vasiliev, released by the chekists who had burst into Kronstadt, took part in the "liquidation" of the "mutiny." Still, the rebels' desperate resistance, and the merciless massacre, continued until late in the night of the 18th.
The enemy exceeded the Kronstadters many many times in strength. Those who could, left for Finland, and over the revolutionary fortress again rose the flag of oppression. The merciless Dybenko, appointed commandant of the town which had yesterday still been free, set out for reprisal. The town where in fifteen days of uprising not one drop of human blood had spilled became a center of shootings, lynchings, and murders.
And in Petrograd, for the freedom of which Kronstadt had risen, a "court" hastily met. With its own unjust trial, selecting 13 heroes from among those being shot, it "judged" those who had shown mercy on hundreds and hundreds of Communists.
And having taken into account all the "circumstances" and "faults," it resolved:
"Denier, 24 y., Aide to the Commander of the battleship Sevastopol, former midshipman, of the former hereditary nobility of Petrograd Prov.; Mazurov, 28 years, artillerist of the same ship, former lieutenant, of the hereditary nobility of Petrograd Prov.; Bekman, 23 years, navigator, former midshipman, of the hereditary nobility of Perm Prov.; Levitsky, 35 years, tower commander, former senior captain, of the hereditary nobility; Sofronov, 27 y., platoon commander, former midshipman, of the hereditary nobility of Tver Prov.; Timonov, 37 y., assistant manager, former priest, from the bourgeoisie of Seva District, Orel Prov.; seamen and members of the ship committee: Sugankov, 25 years, from the peasantry of Gomel Prov., Chernigov District, Stavinsk Region, village Staraia Kamenka; Stepanov, 33 years, from the peasantry of Novgorod Prov., Starorussky District, Vysotsk Region, village Pestovo; Efremov, 29 years, from the peasantry of Petrograd Prov., Iamburg District, Moskovskaia Sloboda; Steshin, 30 years, from the peasantry of Bryansk Prov., Karbachev District, Dragunsk Region, Collective Farm Bratstvo; and Chernousov, 23 years, Commander of the Military Plant, of the peasantry of Minsk Prov., Igumensk District, Ustdensk Region, village Zabolotie, to execute."
"The sentence will be carried out without appeal; it is subject, in light of the current situation in Kronstadt of establishment of revolutionary order, to immediate completion."
The memory of these pure, great-spirited hero/martyrs remains, forever sacred to mournful, suffering humanity, struggling for freedom and a better future. Glory to them, and to Kronstadt, and to the unknown heroes, perished in the struggle...
CONSEQUENCES OF THE KRONSTADT UPRISING, AND ITS MEANING
Kronstadt fell...
It fell before the arrival of support from the Petrograd workers, not having received active aid from boundless, agitated Russia, not having survived even until liberation from the ice of the Gulf of Finland.
The Bolsheviks breathed easier. Kronstadt's execution fell together with their new "victories" in Europe. Specifically, the Bolsheviks bombarded a town which demanded freely elected Soviets, calling its defenders "servitors of the Entente," and "compromisers with capitalism." And they themselves, in those very days, concluded agreements with the capitalists, the Entente, and the Polish imperialists.
The crash of the cannonade had still not died away, and the piles of bodies still not been removed from the ice of the Gulf, when the Soviet authorities, under the sound of the executions of the Kronstadt heroes, were already signing agreements composed by the dictate of the capitalist world.
In those tragic days, an English-Russian trade agreement was signed by the Bolsheviks, opening a broad, uncontrolled road into destroyed Russia for the most powerful capital, English. In those same days, the Treaty of Riga was signed by the Bolsheviks, by which they conceded to Poland 206,837 square kilometers (about 200,000 square verstas [1 versta is equal to 1.06 km.]) with a non-Polish population of twelve million souls, violating the rights and will of the populace.
In those same days, the Bolshevik authorities, together with the Turks, completed the destruction of the Caucasian republics, and gave the Turkish monarchy the most important regions and fortresses of Zakavkazie. So long as Kronstadt's guns thundered, so long as the capitalist and imperialist governments were uncertain of the victory of the Soviet authorities, they did not make the final decision on this robbery of Russia.
Kronstadt fell.
But the thunder of its guns, by Lenin's expression, forced the ruling Communist Party to "think again." The Kronstadt Uprising forced the Communists to renounce their own economic policy, that is, the very Communism for which they supposedly carried out the October Revolution, spilled seas of blood, and destroyed Russia.
For what then was Kronstadt executed?
For what? The list of unsatisfied demands clearly shows for what. For the demand for Democracy, for the demand for freely elected Soviets. The Communists stooped to the renunciation of Communism, but would not agree to allow discussion of the question of power, even discussion only by the peasants, workers, sailors and soldiers, as the people of Kronstadt demanded, and not by the entire nation. The Communists preferred to eliminate food requisitioning, to restore trade, to make concessions to foreigners and to concede Russian land and Russian population to Poland, than to give, if even just to socialist parties, the right of free speech, press, assembly...
That is what Kronstadt was executed for...
Its uprising showed that Communism, and the victories of the October "Revolution," for which they had begun a terrible civil war, and which they so easily renounced, were not dear to the Bolsheviks. It showed, rather, that only power was dear to them, only power, power irregardless of the workers and peasants, power over the proletariat, power against the will of the entire people.
At the present moment, it is even impossible to define the great impact which Kronstadt has already had on the psychology of the people's masses. And the more the real truth about Kronstadt, hidden so thoroughly by the Bolsheviks, is discovered, the more terrible will be the consequences of this unusual "uprising" for them.
The Kronstadt Uprising showed that the Russian people was opposed to Bolshevism, but did so at the moment most advantageous for the Bolshevism. It appeared at the moment when the Intervention had ended, when western countries were concluding agreements with the Bolsheviks and when the reactionary forces had been broken. It showed that in the people, and only in the people, there is a huge life-force, and that it and it alone may, in the center, shake loose and overturn the Bolsheviks.
Thanks to the Kronstadt Uprising, the Western-European socialists and working masses began to think, and to think deeply. For them, the rebellion of Kronstadt was a thunderstrike. For the first time, they came to see clearly and distinctly that the Bolshevik authorities are hated in Russia by the people themselves, by the workers and peasants who are the support of the Revolution.
Earlier, when Denikins and Wrangels attacked the Bolsheviks, western socialists knew that their own imperialist bourgeois governments gave aid to these adventurers and reactionaries. But here Kronstadt arose, and workers and sailors arose. And those lies about Kronstadt which the Bolsheviks spread in Russia could have no meaning in the West. For the European socialist parties well knew and saw that it was the Bolsheviks, not Kronstadt, who colluded with Imperialism in those days. They saw that their governments, at that moment, were speaking not with the people of Kronstadt but with Krasin, Litvinov, Gukovsky and Ioffe. They saw that their governments gave aid not to Kronstadt, abandoned on the ice for certain death by the whole world, but to the Bolsheviks. They saw that the Bolsheviks were executing sailors and workers, and at the same time making every concession and every agreement with capitalism.
Kronstadt was an explosion, sending a powerful blow in every direction. It broke a huge breach in the Bolshevik structure. Kronstadt struck a blow to the very heart of Bolshevism. And however long and painful may be the death agony of Bolshevism, Kronstadt, the first completely independent attempt by workers, sailors and peasants to topple the Bolshevik structure and begin the Third Revolution, will remain a landmark, visible from afar, on a turning point of Russian history.
Bibliography
Akhmanova, O. S., A. I. Smirnitsky. 1987. Russko-Angliiskii slovar. Moscow, Russky Yazyk Publishers, 765 pp.
Avrich, Paul. 1970. Kronstadt 1921. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 271 pp.
Blakely, Allison. 1980. "Populism in Russia," vol. 51, pp. 220-228 in The modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history, ed. Joseph Wieczynski. Gulf Breeze, FL, Academic International Press.
Garmiz, V. V., A. F. Zhukov. 1974. "Maksimalisti," vol. 15, p. 255 in Bolshoe Sovetskoe entsiklopediia, 3rd edition, ed. A. M. Prokhorov. Moscow, Sovetskoe Entsiklopediia.
Getzler, Israel. 1983. Kronstadt 1917-1921. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 296 pp.
Lebedev, Col. Vladimir I. 1918. The Russian democracy in its struggle against the Bolshevist tyranny. New York, Russian Information Bureau in the U.S., 40 pp., map.
Melancon, Michael. 1990. "'Marching together!': left block activities in the Russian revolutionary movement, 1900 to February 1917." Slavic Review, 49 (2): 239-252.
Minor, Osip Solomonovich. 1933. Eto bylo davno... (vospominaniia soldata revoliutsii). Paris, Politicheskii Krasnyi Krest.
Morokhovets, E. A. 1929. Agrarnye programmy Rossiiskikh politicheskikh partiii v 1917 g. Leningrad, Priboi.
Nicoll, G. Douglas. 1980. "Maximalists," vol. 21, pp. 146- 148 in The modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history, ed. Joseph Wieczynski. Gulf Breeze, FL, Academic International Press.
Nicoll, G. Douglas. 1980. "People's Will Party," vol. 27, pp. 165-171 in The modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history, ed. Joseph Wieczynski. Gulf Breeze, FL, Academic International Press.
Perrie, Maureen. 1980. "Socialist Revolutionary Party," vol 36, pp. 95-102 in The modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history, ed. Joseph Wieczynski. Gulf Breeze, FL, Academic International Press.
Perrie, Maureen. 1980. "Zenzinov, Vladimir Mikhailovich," vol. 46, pp. 17-21 in The modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history, ed. Joseph Wieczynski. Gulf Breeze, FL, Academic International Press.
Poltoratsky, N. ed. 1972. Russkaia literatura v emigratsii: sbornik statei. Pittsburgh, Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Pittsburgh.
Pravda o Kronshtadte. 1921. Prague: Volia Rossii, 1921.
Prokhorov, A. M. ed. 1970. Bolshoe Sovetskoe entsiklopediia, 3rd ed. Moscow, Sovietskaia Entsiklopediia, 31 vols.
Prokhorov, A. M. ed. 1973. Great Soviet encyclopedia: a translation of the third edition. New York, Macmillan, 31 vols.
Pukhov, A. S. 1931. Kronshtadtskii miatezh v 1921 g. Leningrad, OGIZ-Molodaia Gvardiia, 205 pp.
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Related Links
Texts from the period:
Alexander Berkman's The Kronstadt Rebellion
(http://www.pitzer.edu/~dward/Anarchist_Archives/bright/berkman/kronstadt/berkkron.html)
Analyses of the Kronstadt Rebellion:
Kronstadt and the Development of Socialism in Russia (http://home.freeuk.net/ethos/kronstadt.htm)
The Kronstadt Commune by Ida Mett (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/mett.html)
"In Defense of the Truth" from Workers Solidarity Movement (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws92/krons34.html)
The Kronstadt Uprising of 1921 by Brian R. Train (http://www.islandnet.com/~citizenx/kronstadt.html)
In Memory of the Kronstadt Revolt by Nestor Makhno in Dyelo Truda (http://www.etext.org/Politics/Spunk/library/writers/makhno/sp001781/chap7.html)
The Russian Revolution homepage (http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/russ/rusrev.html)
Kronstadt, Leninists, and the Truth Review of John Rees on Kronstadt in Defending October (http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/russia/sp001839.html)
Kronstadt 1921: The Third Revolution
Geographical Data on Kronstadt:
A little about Kronstadt (http://www.haukipudas.fi/ya/krons.htm)
A map and tourist info (http://idc.cis.lead.org/idc/kronstadt-photos.html)
Anarchy:
Russian Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism (http://iww.org/~jah/russanar.html)
Anarchy Archive (http://www.pitzer.edu/~dward/Anarchist_Archives/archivehome.html)
An Anarchist FAQ (http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931)
L'En Dehors (French site on Anarchism) (http://www.mygale.org/07/endehors/page9.html)
Black Planet (http://blackplanetdirect.com/index.htm)
APPENDIX:
THE COMPLETE EDITION OF "IZVESTIIA OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF SAILORS, SOLDIERS AND WORKERS OF THE TOWN OF KRONSTADT"
Number 1: Wednesday, March 3rd, 1921
Number 2: Friday, March 4th, 1921
Number 3: Saturday, March 5th, 1921
Number 4: Sunday, March 6th, 1921
Number 5: Monday, March 7th, 1921
Number 6: Tuesday, March 8th, 1921
Number 7: Wednesday, March 9th, 1921
Number 8: Thursday, March 10th, 1921
Number 9: Friday, March 11th, 1921
Number 10: Saturday, March 12th, 1921
Number 11: Sunday, March 13th, 1921
Number 12: Monday, March 14th, 1921
Number 13: Tuesday, March 15th, 1921
Number 14: Wednesday, March 16th, 1921
NUMBER 1
Wednesday, March 3rd, 1921
TO THE POPULACE OF THE FORTRESS AND TOWN OF KRONSTADT, COMRADES AND CITIZENS!
Our country is enduring a difficult moment. Hunger, cold and economic ruin have held us in an iron vice these three years already. The Communist Party, which rules the country, has become separated from the masses, and shown itself unable to lead her from her state of general ruin. It has not faced the reality of the disturbances which in recent times have occurred in Petrograd and Moscow. This unrest shows clearly enough that the party has lost the faith of the working masses. Neither has it recognized the demands presented by the workers. It considers them plots of the counterrevolution. It is deeply mistaken.
This unrest, these demands, are the voice of the people in its entirety, of all laborers. All workers, sailors and soldiers see clearly at the present moment that only through common effort, by the common will of the laborers, is it possible to give the country bread, wood, and coal, to dress the barefoot and naked, and to lead the Republic out of this dead end.
This will of all laborers, soldiers and sailors was definitively expressed at the Garrison Meeting of our town on Tuesday, March 1st. At that meeting, the resolution of ships' crews of the 1st and 2nd Brigades was passed unanimously. Among the decisions taken, it was decided to immediately carry out new elections to the Soviet, for these elections to be carried out on a fairer basis, and specifically, in such a way that true representation of the laborers would be found in the Soviet, and that the Soviet would be an active and energetic organ.
On March 2nd of this year, delegates from all sailor, soldier and worker organizations gathered in the House of Education. It was proposed to form at this Conference a basis for new elections, in order to then enter into peaceful work on redesigning the Soviet structure. But in view of the fact that there were grounds to fear repression, and also due to threatening speeches by the representatives of authority, the Conference decided to form a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, to which to give all authority in governing the town and fortress.
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee is located on the bttlshp. PETROPAVLOVSK.
Comrades and citizens! The Provisional Committee is deeply concerned that there should not be spilled a single drop of blood. It has taken emergency measures for the establishment of revolutionary order in the town and fortress, and at the forts.
Comrades and citizens! Do not stop work. Workers, remain at your machines, sailors and soldiers in your units and at the forts. All Soviet workers and organizations must continue their work. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee calls all workers' organizations, all naval and trade unions, and all naval and military units and individual citizens to give it universal support and aid. The task of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee is a general, comradely effort to organize in the town and fortress means for proper and fair elections to a new Soviet.
And so, comrades, to order, to calm, to restraint, and to a new Socialist construction for the good of all laborers.
Kronstadt, March 2nd, 1921
bttlshp. Petropavlovsk
PETRICHENKO, President of the Prov. Rev. Committee
TUKIN, Secretary
RESOLUTION
OF THE GENERAL MEETING OF CREWS OF THE 1ST AND 2ND BATTLESHIP BRIGADES, OCCURING 1 MARCH, 1921
Having heard the report of the crew representatives, sent to the City of Petrograd by the General Meeting of ships' crews for clarification of the situation there, we resolve:
1. In view of the fact that the present Soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, to immediately hold new elections to the Soviets by secret ballot, with freedom of pre-election agitation for all workers and peasants.
2. Freedom of speech and press for workers and peasants, anarchists and left socialist parties.
3. Freedom of assembly of both trade unions and peasant associations.
4. To convene not later than March 10th, 1921 a non-party Conference of workers, soldiers and sailors of the city of Petrograd, of Kronstadt, and of Petrograd province.
5. To free all political prisoners of socialist parties, and also all workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with worker and peasant movements.
6. To elect a Commission for the review of the cases of those held in prisons and concentration camps.
7. To abolish all POLITOTDELS, since no single party should be able to have such privileges for the propaganda of its ideas and receive from the state the means for these ends. In their place must be established locally elected cultural-educational commissions, for which the state must provide resources.
8. To immediately remove all anti-smuggling roadblock detachments.
9. To equalize the rations of all laborers, with the exception of those in work injurious to health.
10. To abolish the Communist fighting detachments in all military units, and also the various guards kept in factories and plants by the communists, and if such guards or detachments are needed, they can be chosen in military units from the companies, and in factories and plants by the discretion of the workers.
11. To give the peasants full control over their own land, to do as they wish, and also to keep cattle, which must be maintained and managed by their own strength, that is, without using hired labor.
12. We appeal to all military units, and also to the comrade cadets to lend their support to our resolution.
13. We demand that all resolutions be widely publicized in the press.
14. To appoint a travelling bureau for control.
15. To allow free handicraft manufacture by personal labor.
The resolution was passed by the Brigade Meeting unanimously with two abstentions.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Brigade Meeting
PEREPELKIN, Secretary
The resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority of the entire Kronstadt garrison.
VASILIEV, President
Together with Comrade Kalinin, Vasiliev votes against the resolution.
By 9 P.M. on March 2nd, the majority of forts and all army units of the fortress had given their support to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. All organizations and the Communications Service are occupied by guards from the Revolutionary Committee. From Oranienbaum have arrived representatives, who declared that the Oranienbaum garrison has also given its support to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
THERE IS A GENERAL UPRISING IN PETROGRAD.
Comrade Ia. Ilyin was called by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and appointed to continue work on the provision of food to the populace. The produce apparatus will work without break. Today, bread is issued for two days, that is, for March 3rd and 4th.
The Oranienbaum Air Division has given its support to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and is sending delegates. Our resolution was sent to Petrograd. We await an answer.
At Fort Totleben, Novikov, Commissar of the Fortress, who had been making his way toward the Finnish border on horseback, was restrained by the crew of the 6th Battery.
NUMBER 2
Friday, March 4th, 1921
ORDERS
of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Town of Kronstadt.
No 1
March 3rd, 1921, battleship PETROPAVLOVSK
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Town of Kronstadt orders all organizations in the town and fortress to strictly carry out all decrees of the Committee. All heads of organizations and their workers are to remain in their places and continue work.
No 2
March 3rd, 1921, battleship PETROPAVLOVSK
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Town of Kronstadt forbids leaving the town. In exceptional cases, apply to the Commander of the Town. The Department of Fleet Staff Registration in Kronstadt is instructed to halt any and all leaves.
No 3
March 3rd, 1921
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee forbids any and all arbitrary searches in the town, and brings to the general attention that certificates for the right of search are issued with the signature of the President and Secretary of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and are invalid without the seal of the battleship Petropavlovsk. It is ordered that during searches of organizations, of whatever party, nothing is to be removed, nor stolen. All must be preserved entire, as the people's property.
No 4.
March 3rd, 1921, battleship PETROPAVLOVSK
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Town of Kronstadt, in view of the the events currently being endured, forewarns all citizens, seamen, and soldiers that, after 11 P.M., any and all movement about the town is absolutely forbidden without special documents issued by the Prov. Rev. Com.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee
KILGAST, for the Secretary
FROM THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee considers it necessary to refute all rumors that the arrested Communists are threatened with violence. The arrested Communists are located in complete security.
Many of them were arrested, and a part then released. A member of the Communist Party will take part in the commission for investigation of the reasons for the Communists' arrest. To Comrades Ilyin, Kabanov and Pervushin, who appeared before the Revolutionary Committee, was given the right to see those located under arrest on the Petropavlovsk, and they, with their signatures, personally affirm that declared above.
Ilyin, Kabanov, Pervushin.
Certified true:
N. ARKHIPOV, authorized member of the Prov. Rev. Com.
P. BOGDANOV, for the Secretary
Finally, the Communists themselves have admitted that it is necessary to restructure life, and that it does not follow to hold power by force which falls from your hands by the will of the laboring masses. Evidence of this is the appeal of the Provisional Bureau of the Kronstadt Organization of the R.C.P., printed below.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Rev. Com.
APPEAL OF THE PROVISIONAL BUREAU OF THE KRONSTADT
ORGANIZATION OF THE R.C.P
Comrade Communists, working in all Soviet departments, trade organizations, and factory committees, all economic organs, and also in the military units of the garrison, the PROVISIONAL BUREAU OF THE R.C.P. addresses you with a comradely appeal and urgent call of the following substance:
The moment currently being endured demands of us special caution, restraint and tact. Our party has not betrayed, and is not betraying, the working class, in the defense of which it has stood for many years. The historic course of political events requires us, in the interests of all laborers, to be at our places, and to carry on our daily work without any stoppages. We must remember that the smallest weakening or break in work, in any section of our economic life, brings about worse living conditions for the working class and peasantry.
May every comrade of our party be imbued with an understanding of the moment being endured. Do not believe the absurd rumors that Communist leaders are supposedly being shot, and that Communists are preparing for armed action in Kronstadt. They are spread by a clearly provocative element, which wishes to provoke bloodshed. These are lies and absurdities, and it is on such as these that the agents of the Entente, working to achieve the overthrow of Soviet power, wish to play.
We openly declare that our party, with weapon in hand, has and will defend all the achievements of the working class against the open and secret White Guards who wish the destruction of the Soviet power of workers and peasants.
The Provisional Bureau of the R.C.P recognizes new elections to the Soviet as necessary, and calls on all members of the R.C.P to take part in these new elections.
The Provisional Bureau of the R.C.P. calls on all members of the party to be at their places, and not to cause any obstruction to the measures being carried out by the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. Restraint, discipline, calm and unity are the price of victory for the workers and peasants of the entire world against all the secret and open plots of the Entente.
Long live Soviet power!
Long live the Worldwide Union of Laborers!
Provisional Bureau of the Kronst. Organ. of the R.C.P.
IA. ILYIN, F. PERVUSHIN, A. KABANOV
TO THE POPULACE OF THE TOWN OF KRONSTADT,
CITIZENS!
Kronstadt is now enduring a moment of tense struggle for freedom. An attack by the Communists can be expected any minute, with the goal of seizing Kronstadt, and again fastening us to their authority, which brings us only to hunger, cold and ruin. We all, to the last man, will staunchly defend the freedom achieved by us. We shall not allow them to seize Kronstadt, and if they should attempt to do so by force of arms, we will give them a worthy repulse.
Therefore, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee forewarns citizens not to give in to panic and fear if it becomes necessary to hear shooting. Only calm and restraint will give us victory.
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
A BROADCAST FROM MOSCOW
We print the following, broadcast on Rosta from Moscow, full of blatant lies and deceptions by the Communist Party, which calls itself the Soviet Government. The broadcast was picked up by the radio station on the Petropavlovsk.
Several sections weren't picked up, as another station interfered. This broadcast does not require commentary. The laborers of Kronstadt will understand its provocative nature.
Broadcast. To all, To all, To all.
radio messenger Rosta Moscow, March 3rd.
"To Battle With White Guard Conspiracy."
That the mutiny by former General Kozlovsky and the ship Petropavlovsk was prepared by the spies of the Entente, like so many earlier White Guard rebellions, is visible from the report of the bourgeois French newspaper Matin, which two weeks before the mutiny printed a telegram from Helsingfors of the following substance.
"Of Petrograd they report that as a result of a recent revolt in Kronstadt, Bolshevik military authorities have taken a whole set of measures to isolate Kronstadt, and to forbid the soldiers and sailors of the Kronstadt garrison access to Petrograd. Supply of provisions to Kronstadt is forbidden in the future, until special decree. It is clear that the mutiny in Kronstadt was directed by Paris... and that French counterintelligence is mixed up here."
The same old story is repeated. The SR's, led from Paris, prepared the soil for a rebellion against Soviet Power, and just when they'd gotten it ready, the real boss, a tsarist general, appeared from cover behind their backs. The story of Kolchak, establishing his power in exchange for that of the SR's, is now repeated. All enemies of the laborers, from tsarist generals to SR's inclusive, try to speculate on hunger and cold. Of course, this general/SR revolt will be put down very quickly, and General Kozlovsky and his associates risk the fate of Kolchak.
But the Entente's spy net is undoubtably spread not only in Kronstadt alone. Workers and soldiers, tear apart that net, and fish out informers and provocateurs! Composure, restraint, vigilance and unity are needed. Remember that we will leave these temporary, if difficult, food and heating problems with tight, comradely labor, and not by the path of insane exhibitions which can only increase the hunger still more, and play into the hands of the damned enemies of laborers.
radio station Moskva
PRODUCE
From Gorkommuna
Today salted butter is issued from the meat stores: for letter A, 3/4 lb. and letter B, 1/2 lb. for produce coupon No 2. Table butter for children of series A, 1 pound for produce coupon No 3, series B, 1/2 lb. for produce coupon No 3, and series C, 1/2 lb. for produce coupon No 2.
Salt is issued from all stores to adults for produce coupon No 3, to children of series B for produce coupon No 4 and series C for produce coupon No 3, at 1 lb. for all.
Coffee: to boarders and non-boarders for bread coupon No 5, to children of series B for bread coupon No 53 and series C for bread coupon No 5, at 1/4 lb. for all.
2 boxes of matches are issued from all stores, by adult cards for bread coupon No 6, the same for boarders and non-boarders.
1 pound of dried potatoes is issued to children of series B for produce coupon No 6 and series C for produce coupon No 5.
Today 1/2 pound of first grade tobacco is issued from the writing paper store (formerly of Rakovskaya) and the store (formerly of Molchanov) by registered tobacco cards, with the cutting of coupon No 4.
The responsible clerks in the stores are instructed to cut control coupon No 1 on the tobacco cards.
Today kerosine is issued by cards up to No 7000.
In accordance with People's Commisariat of Social Security circular No 2495 of September 8th, 1920, the Administration of Gorkommuna instructs Uchkoms [District Election Committees] and Building Representatives, on their own responsibility, not later than March 5th to take "Red Star" cards from childless wives of soldiers and sailors who are occupied with work and service in organizations and who therefore receive produce card letter A-reserved.
Fruit drops are issued by children's cafeteria cards of series C for bread coupon No 54 from the same stores as to non-boarders, and in the same quantity.
CHASNOV, Member of the Administration for Distribution
The order of bread issue for the month of March is announced:
March 3rd
for the 3rd
and 4th
by coupon No 30 (I.X.)
5
5
6
29
7
7
8
28
9
9
10
27
11
11
--
26
11
12
13
25
14
14
15
24
16
16
17
23
17
18
19
22
19
20
21
21
22
22
23
20
24
24
25
19
26
26
27
18
28
28
29
17
30
30
31
16
For the convenience of citizens, bread will be delivered the evening before issuance, but citizens are instructed to take the bread on the announced days.
Issuance of remaining products will be announced specially.
ANNOUNCEMENT.
All military units, workers' associations and organizations may receive 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee' and pamphlets at Sevtsentropechat [North Central Publishing], in accordance with the set norm.
NUMBER 3
Saturday, March 5th, 1921
ANNOUNCEMENT
It is brought to the general attention that the Provisional Revolutionary Committee has moved from the battleship Petropavlovsk to quarters in the "House of the People," Lenin Prospekt No 39 (fourth floor), and it is instructed to apply there for all certificates and instructions.
SPITE OF THE POWERLESS
It is three days since Kronstadt threw from itself the nightmarish power of the Communists, just as 4 years ago it threw off the power of the Tsar, and of the tsarist generals. For three days, the citizens of Kronstadt have breathed free of the party dictatorship. The Kronstadt Communists' "great leaders" ran away disgracefully, like guilty little children. They saved their skins from the danger that the Provisional Revolutionary Committee would resort to that beloved means of extremists, the firing squad.
It was a vain fear. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee takes revenge against no one, threatens no one. All the Kronstadt Communists are at liberty, and are unthreatened by any danger. Only those are restrained who tried to flee and were taken by the patrols. But even they are located in complete security, in a security which guarantees them against revenge by the populace for the "red terror." The Communists' families are inviolate, just as all citizens are inviolate.
And how have the Communists answered this? From the leaflets which they threw from an airplane yesterday, it is seen that a whole group of people, completely non-participant in the Kronstadt events, have been arrested in Petrograd. Moreover, their families have also been arrested.
"The Defense Committee," it says in the leaflet, "declares all those arrested to be hostages for those comrades restrained by the mutineers in Kronstadt, and in particular for N. N. Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot, for Comrade Vasiliev, President of the Kronstadt Soviet, and for other Communists. If even one hair falls from the heads of the restrained comrades, the named hostages will answer for it with their heads."
Thus does the Defense Committee end its proclamation. This is the spite of the powerless... Jeering over innocent families will not add new laurels to the comrade Communists. Certainly, in any case, not by this path will they hold on to the power which is being torn from their hands by the workers, sailors and soldiers of Kronstadt.
VICTORY OR DEATH
(A Conference of Delegates)
Yesterday, March 4th, at 6 P.M., an assembly of the Conference of Delegates from military units of the garrison and from trade unions took place at the Garrison Club. Its purpose was to hold by-elections to the membership of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, to hear reports on the current moment from various locations, etc. 202 delegates took part in the Conference, the majority arriving straight from work.
The sailor Petrichenko, President of the Conference, announced that the Prov. Rev. Com. was overloaded with work, and that it was necessary to add to its forces. The addition of at least ten more people to the five current members of the Committee was required. Twenty candidates were nominated, and the Conference elected the following comrades by an overwhelming majority of votes: Vershinin, Perepelkin, Kupolov, Ososov, Valk, Romanenko, Pavlov, Boikov, Patrushev and Kilgast. After the election, the new members of the Committee took places in the Presidium.
After this, the Conference heard the detailed report of the President of the Prov. Rev. Com., the sailor Petrichenko, on the Committee's actions from the moment of its election up to the previous day. Comrade Petrichenko underscored the full battle readiness of the entire garrison of the fortress, and of the ships, and the enthusiasm which filled all together and each individually, from the workers to the soldiers and sailors. The meeting greeted the newly elected members of the Committee and the President's concluding words with stormy applause.
Moving on to business, the Conference considered first of all the question of produce and heating material. It was made clear that the town and garrison are fully provided for both produce and heating material.
On the question of arming the workers, the Conference mandated the arming of the working masses. This was completed to the loud approval of the workers themselves, and cries of "victory or death." The workers were assigned the internal guard of the town, since the sailors and soldiers are bursting for active work in the combat detachments.
Further, it was decided to newly elect within three days the administrations of all unions, and also the Soviet of Unions. This is the leading organ of the workers, and will be in constant contact with the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
Then reports from various places were given by comrade sailors who had broken through to Kronstadt from Petrograd, Strelna, Peterhof and Oranienbaum. From their information it is seen that the populace and workers of these towns are being kept by the Communists in total unawareness of what is being done in Kronstadt. Provocative rumors are being let out to the effect that some kind of gang of White Guards and generals is running things in Kronstadt.
This last information called forth the general laughter of the sailors and workers at the assembly. It reached an even more comical mood during the reading of a "Communist manifesto," tossed on Kronstadt from an airplane.
"We just have one general, Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot," and "Yeah, and he's under arrest," were heard from the back rows.
The assembly ended with a number of greetings, wishes, and an expression of full and single-hearted preparedness for victory or death.
The entire assembly took place under this slogan, "Victory or Death."
GREETINGS TO THE KRONSTADT GARRISON
The radio station of the battleship Petropavlovsk received a broadcast from Reval [Tallinn, Estonia], sent to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. "Greetings to the valiant garrison of revolutionary Kronstadt, which has overthrown the tyrants' power."
ZINOVIEV AT KRASNAYA GORKA
Zinoviev arrived in Oranienbaum on a special train, and has just now come to Krasnaya Gorka. His visit is due to unrest among the local garrison, which has spoken out at spontaneous meetings in favor of giving support to the Kronstadt movement.
MOVEMENT OF TRAINS TO ORANIENBAUM HALTED
By order of the Defense Committee of Petrograd, movement of trains to Oranienbaum has been halted. Trains set out in exceptional cases, and with the special allowance of the Defense Committee. There are increased guards of railroad police and cadets at all stations.
ARREST OF THE HEAD OF PUBALT
From Sestroretsk
Batis, head of the Politotdel of Baltflot, was restrained by our patrol while attempting to break through to fort Totleben, and was returned to Kronstadt. Several other Communists were restrained along with him.
"THE COMMUNIST WAY"
Mass worker arrests have been carried out at the Sestroretsk Weapons Factory. Heartbreaking scenes are being played out in the town. The wives and children of the workers appear sobbing in the streets and demand freedom for their husbands and fathers.
IN PETROGRAD
According to reports, meetings are being held at all factories in Petrograd, at which the events in Kronstadt are discussed. The workers' attitude is on the side of Revolutionary Kronstadt, and they are trying in every way to make contact with us. The Communists are preventing this, throwing all their forces into observation of and spying on the workers, soldiers and sailors.
The course of arrests has intensified, especially among the sailors. Sailors are forbidden to be absent from the ships. Commissars and Communists are occupied with intensified spying. Street gatherings are broken up by armed detachments of Communists.
The bread ration for the populace has been decreased; 3/4 pound is issued for two days.
LATEST NEWS FROM PETROGRAD
--Just now, there has been report that the gigantic Brick Plant No 1 has gone on strike.
--The workers of the Baltic Factory have refused to come to work.
--Increased guards of Communist combat detachments and cadets have been placed near the moorages of the battleships Gangut and Poltava.
--Sailors who succeed in breaking through to Oranienbaum are arrested at the station.
--All sailors living in private apartments are ordered to move to the vessels.
NORMAL LIFE IN THE TOWN
There is complete order in Kronstadt, unbroken since the moment of the transfer of power to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. All organizations are working normally, and there has not been a single hour of work stoppage. The streets are lively. In all three days not a single round has been fired. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee, in order to be closer to the populace, has moved from the Petropavlovsk to the "House of the People."
FLIGHT FROM THE PARTY
I
The following declaration arrived at the Provisional Revolutionary Committee:
"I recognize that the policy of the Communist Party has led the country to a dead end because the party has become bureaucratized, learned nothing, and not wanted to learn and to listen to the voice of the masses, whom it has tried to tie to its own will. We remember the at least 150 million peasantry, that freedom of speech, and an expanded call to construction of the country by means of changed electoral methods will bring the country from hibernation, they entirely give their support at the present critical moment when the future of the reconstruction of Russia which has been begun by the Revolutionary Soviet depends only on its vigilance and energy, and I no longer consider myself a member of the R.C.P., but entirely give my support to the resolution taken at the general town meeting of the 1st of March, and ask that my strength and knowledge be used.
I ask that the present be published in the local newspaper."
GERMAN KANAEV, red commander, son of a political exile in the Matter of the 193.
3/3-21
II
At the end of 1919, official reports were published in 'Izvestiia of the Central Executive Committee' that Maximalists participated in organizing the blowing up of the Moscow Department of the R.C.P., and in armed expropriations in the South, including the murder of collective farmers. I, considering terror against Socialist Parties to be unacceptable, left the ranks of the Socialist-Revolutionaries Maximalists because of these reports.
Recently I received information from a completely trustworthy source that this was all one of the means of party struggle by the Communists, and that the court was forced to acquit the Maximalists. The press, located in the partisan hands of the Communists, was studiously silent about this.
In strength of the above, I ask that I no longer be considered a candidate member of the Communist Party. I am returning to the ranks of the Union of SR-Maximalists, the slogan of which has always been, is and shall be, "Power to Soviets, and not Parties."
A. LAMANOV
March 4th, 1921
III
I, a soldier of the 4th Artillery Division, was deluded and became a sympathizer with the Communist Party. Now I am leaving that delusion, and giving my support to the mass. I do this in order to move ahead hand in hand with the Revolutionary Committee.
DONAT SEMENOVICH VAG
March 4th, 1921
ANNOUNCEMENT
All military units, workers associations and organizations may receive 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee' and pamphlets at Sevtsentropechat, in accordance with the set norm.
NUMBER 4
Sunday, March 6th, 1921
"SIRS" OR "COMRADES"
The Kronstadt seamen, and the workers with their toil-hardened hands, have torn the helm from the hands of the Communists, and taken their place at the wheel. With assurance and good cheer, they will lead the ship of Soviet power to Petrograd, whence the power of toil-hardened hands must surely capture long-suffering Russia.
But be on guard comrades. Increase your vigilance tenfold, for the path leading you to the clear channel is strewn with submerged rocks. One careless turn of the wheel, and the ship, with its cargo of social construction which you value so greatly, may founder on the cliffs.
Guard the helmsman's bridge vigilantly, comrades, for enemies already skulk near. A single negligence by you, and they will tear the wheel away. The Soviet ship may go to the bottom, to the malicious laughter of tsarist lackeys and servitors of the bourgeoisie.
You, comrades, now celebrate a great and bloodless victory over the Communist dictatorship, and your enemies celebrate with you. But your motives for joy and theirs are completely opposed. You are inspired with a burning desire to build true Soviet power, and by the noble hope of granting the worker freedom of labor, and the peasant the right to control his own land and the produce of his work. They are driven by the hope of raising anew the tsarist whip, and the privilege of generals.
Your interests are not the same, and you and they do not walk the same path. [sic] You needed to overthrow Communist authority for the goal of peaceful construction, and for constructive work. They need this for the enslavement of the workers and peasants. You search for freedom; they wish to once again throw onto you the chains of slavery. Be vigilant. Do not allow wolves in sheep's clothing close to the helmsman's bridge.
COWARDS AND SLANDERERS
Below, we print word for word the text of a proclamation thrown out of an airplane over Kronstadt by the Communists.
The citizens regard this provocative slander with total contempt. The people of Kronstadt know how, and by whom, the hated power of the Communists was overturned. They know that at the head of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee stand elected, selfless martyrs, the best sons of the laboring people: soldiers, sailors and workers. They will not allow anyone to seat himself on their neck. Much less will they allow tsarist generals or White Guards. The Communists issue the threat, "A few more hours will pass, and you will be forced to surrender." Despicable hypocrites! Who do you want to deceive?
The Kronstadt garrison did not surrender to tsarist admirals, and will not surrender to Bolshevist generals. Do not lie and attempt to deceive the people, cowards! You know our strength, and our readiness to either be victorious, or to die with honor. You know that we will never bolt, like your commissars, loaded down with "tsarist" money, and gold extracted by the blood of the workers.
YOU'VE GOTTEN WHAT YOU ASKED FOR
To the Deceived People of Kronstadt
Now do you see where the scoundrels have led you? You've gotten what you asked for! From behind the cover of the SR's and Mensheviks, former tsarist generals have already peered out with bared teeth. Kozlovsky, the tsarist general, Captain Burkser, Kostromitinov, Shirkanovsky [sic], and other notorious White Guards control all these Petrichenkos and Turins [sic] like puppets on strings. They are deceiving you! They have told you that you are struggling for "democracy." Not even two days have passed and you see that, in fact, you struggle not for democracy, but for tsarist generals. You have placed a new Viren on your own necks.
They tell you fairy tales, speaking as if Petrograd stood behind you, as if Siberia and the Ukraine supported you. All this is a shameless lie! In Petrograd the last sailor turned from you when it became known that tsarist General Kozlovsky was running things. Siberia and the Ukraine stand firmly for Soviet power. Red Petrograd laughs at the pathetic labors of a little bunch of SR's and White Guards.
You are completely surrounded. A few more hours will pass, and you will be forced to surrender. There is no bread and no heat in Kronstadt. If you are stubborn, you will be shot down like grouse. All these General Kozlovskys and Burksers, all these scoundrel Petrichenkos and Turins, will run away at the last minute, of course. And you, the deceived rank and file sailors and soldiers, where will you go? If they promise that Finland will feed you, then they are deceiving you! Can you really have not heard how they took the former soldiers of Wrangel away to Constantinople, and how they died there from disease by the thousands, like flies? Just such a fate awaits you too, if you do not come to your senses right now!
Surrender now, not losing a single minute!
Lay down your weapons, and come over to us!
Disarm and arrest the criminal ring leaders, and especially the tsarist generals!
The one who surrenders immediately will be forgiven his guilt.
Surrender immediately!
THE PETROGRAD DEFENSE COMMITTEE
The broadcast below, received by the radio station of the Petropavlovsk, confirms yet again that the Communists continue to deceive not only workers and soldiers, but also the members of the Petrograd Soviet.
But they will not succeed in deceiving the revolutionary garrison of Kronstadt and its workers.
ADDRESS TO THE WORKERS, SAILORS AND SOLDIERS OF KRONSTADT
Passed at an expanded session of the Petrograd Soviet, with the attendance, besides the members of the Soviet, of representatives from factory-plant committees and from the administrations of all trade unions. With the attendance, also, of commissions and delegations elected at factories and plants, among whom were hundreds of non-party workingmen, workingwomen, sailors and soldiers.
A little bunch of adventurers and counter-revolutionaries has led Kronstadt astray. Under cover of the Petropavlovsk sailors, spies sent by French counterintelligence have unquestionably been active. They tell the sailors that the whole matter is a struggle for "democracy," that they do not want the shedding of blood, and that the mutiny is passing without a single shot, for some kind of "democracy." French capitalists' spies, tsarist generals, and their faithful helpers the Mensheviks and SR's can struggle for such democracy.
If it had ever been fated for them to achieve success, the exploits of this gang of thieves and traitors would inescapably have led to the reestablishment of bourgeois power, and to bloody reprisal against the workers and peasants.
The Mensheviks and SR's, pointing to the difficult economic situation of the Soviet Republic, say that the Communists have been incapable of economic construction. But who, for three years, did not allow the Russian workers and peasants the possibility of peaceful economic construction?
If anyone worked to create hunger and economic ruin, then it was the Mensheviks and SR's. They have supported every counterrevolutionary rebellion, tirelessly fanned the flames of civil war in the name of re-establishing the power of landlords and capitalists, and directed international imperialists against Soviet Russia.
The leaders of the conspiracy say that they captured power in Kronstadt without a shot. But this occurred only because Soviet power wished to overcome this conflict by peaceful means. It cannot continue thus. The international bourgeoisie is raising its head. There is exultation in the camp of the enemies of the working class, exultation which may any day pour out in a new campaign against Soviet Russia.
This danger threatens all our attainments. The adventurers yell that the Communists cannot handle economic construction. With this they are pushing Soviet Russia into the embrace of a new war.
The Petrograd Soviet and central Soviet power cannot, and do not have the right to, allow things to come to that. The work of the counterrevolutionaries who have been planted in Kronstadt is hopeless. They are powerless in a dispute with Soviet Russia. The mutiny must be liquidated in the very shortest period.
Comrade workers, sailors and soldiers, understand that you are deceived. Understand that on you depends the bloody outcome of the adventurism into which the White Guards have drawn you. On you depends whether these White Guard scribblers escape their deserved punishment.
Comrades, immediately arrest the ringleaders of the counter-revolutionary conspiracy. Immediately reestablish the Kronstadt Soviet. Soviet power is able to distinguish unknowing, mistaken toilers from intentional counterrevolutionaries.
Comrades, once again the Petrograd Soviet states that on you depends whether fraternal blood does or does not spill. By the base will of enemies of the working class, their bloody scheme will collapse on the heads of the working class alone.
This is our last warning; time does not wait. Decide immediately, either you are with us against the common enemy, or you will perish shamefully and infamously together with the counterrevolutionaries.
The Petrograd Soviet of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies
radio station Novaia Golandiia
BROADCAST BY THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
To all... To all... To all...
Comrade workers, soldiers and sailors! We in Kronstadt know very well how you and your half starved children and wives suffer under the yoke of the Communist dictatorship. We have overthrown the Communist Soviet here. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee is currently preparing to carry out new elections, to a new, freely elected Soviet, which will express the will of the entire laboring populace and garrison, and not of a little bunch of insane Communists.
Our struggle is rightful. We stand for power of Soviets, and not parties. We stand for freely elected representatives of laborers. The current Soviets, seized and subverted by the Communists, have always been deaf to all our needs and demands. In answer we received only executions. Now, when the limit to the laborers' patience has been reached, they want to shut your mouths with miserable pittances. By Zinoviev's decree, anti-profiteer roadblock detachments in Petrograd Province are being removed. Moscow is assigning ten million in gold for the purchase abroad of provisions and items of the first necessity. But we know that you cannot buy the Peter proletariat with these pittances. We extend the hand of fraternal aid to you from Revolutionary Kronstadt, past the heads of the Communists.
Comrades! They not only deceive you, but purposely obscure the truth, resorting to base slander. Comrades, do not be taken in! All entirety of power in Kronstadt is in the hands of revolutionary sailors, soldiers and workers alone, and not of White Guards with some General Kozlovsky at head, as the slanderous broadcasts from Moscow would have you believe.
COMPOSITION OF AND DIVISION OF DUTIES AMONG THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
The following comrades are included in the composition of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee: Arkhipov, Boikov, Valk, Vershinin, Kilgast, Kupolov, Oreshin, Ososov, Pavlov, Patrushev, Perepelkin, Petrichenko, Romanenko, Tukin and Yakimenko [sic].
From them were chosen: Comrade Petrichenko as President of the Prov. Rev. Com., Comrades Yakimenko and Arkhipov as Comrades of the President, Comrade Kilgast as Secretary of the Prov. Rev. Com. (he was also appointed the management of information); the management of civilian matters was appointed to Comrades Valk and Romanenko, of transport resources to Comrade Boikov, of the Investigative Unit to Comrade Pavlov, and of the Produce Department to Comrade Tukin.
KRONSTADT'S DELEGATES IN PETROGRAD
A special courier from Petrograd has now arrived in Kronstadt with notification that the delegation sent by Kronstadt organizations arrived there safely. The delegation informed the capitol's workers and sailors of the events in Kronstadt, distributed the orders and leaflets issued by the Prov. Rev. Com., and departed for other missions, in a direction which it knows.
RESOLUTION OF THE SOLDIERS OF FORT RIF
We, soldiers of fort Rif, have heard the report of representatives of the comrade sailors, regarding the current moment, about events in Kronstadt, and have resolved: to express full faith in the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and to stay at our posts and fight until there isn't a single soldier left in the fort.
Long live the freedom of the workers and peasants.
Long live the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
RIABOV, President of the Assembly
ANDREEV, Secretary
APPEAL TO ALL HONEST COMMUNARDS
Comrade rank and file Communists, look about, and you will see that we have entered a terrible swamp, led by a little bunch of Communist bureaucrats. Under a Communist mask, they have built warm nests for themselves in our Republic. I, as a Communist, call on you to drive from us those false Communists who incite us to fratricide. We rank and file Communists, in no way guilty, suffer the rebukes of our comrade non-party workers and peasants because of them. I look with horror on the situation which has been created.
Will the blood of our brothers really be spilled for the interests of those Communist bureaucrats? Comrades, come to your senses, and do not submit to the provocations of those Communist bureaucrats who push us to slaughter. Drive them away, for a true Communist must not limit his ideas. He must walk hand in hand with the entire laboring mass.
ROZHKALI [sic] of the minelayer Narov, member of the R.C.P. (bolsheviks)
ORDER OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE-
TO THE REVTROIKA OF THE BUREAU OF TRADE UNIONS
In accord with the resolution of the General Conference of representatives of seamen, soldiers and workers of March 4th, the Prov. Rev. Com. instructs the Revtroika [Revolutionary Tribunal] of the Bureau of Unions to carry out not later than Monday new elections to Raikoms [Regional Committees] and union administrations, and on Tuesday the 8th to carry out new elections to the Soviet of Trade Unions.
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
Do not delay, comrades. Lend your support, and enter into firm contact with us. Demand that your non-party representatives be allowed through to Kronstadt. Only they will tell you the entire truth, and dispel the provocative rumors of bread from Finland and plots by the Entente.
Long live the revolutionary proletariat and peasantry!
Long live the power of freely elected Soviets!"
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF KRONSTADT
March 6th, 1921, radio station of the battleship Petropavlovsk
NUMBER 5
Monday, March 7th, 1921
ALL POWER TO SOVIETS, AND NOT PARTIES
"DON'T SPARE THE BULLETS"
Fieldmarshal Trotsky is issuing threats against Free Kronstadt, risen up against the three year autocracy of Communist commissars. This newly appeared Trepov threatens the toilers who have thrown off the shameful yoke of the Communist Party's dictatorship with armed destruction. He threatens the murder of the peaceful populace of Kronstadt. He gives the order "don't spare the bullets."
But he will not have enough of them for the revolutionary sailors, soldiers and workers.
Naturally, he, dictator of a Russia raped by the Communists, does not care what becomes of the laboring masses, so long as power is in the hands of the R.C.P. He has the shamelessness to speak in the name of long-suffering Russia, and promise mercy. This is he, bloodthirsty Trotsky, Marshal of the Communist oprichnina, extinguisher of the spirit of freedom, spiller of rivers of blood for the autocracy of the R.C.P., who dares speak so to those who are strongly and boldly holding aloft the red banner of Kronstadt.
The Communists hope to renew their despotic rule at the price of the blood of toilers, and of the sufferings of their arrested families. They hope to force the sailors, soldiers and workers to again profer their neck so that the Communists may seat themselves the better. With this they hope to continue their stinking policies, which have plunged all Laboring Russia into the abyss of total destruction, hunger and cold. Enough! You will deceive the laborers no more! Your hopes are futile, Communists, and your threats powerless.
The ninth wave of the Laborers' Revolution has arisen, and will wash the stinking slanderers and tyrants, with the defilement brought by their actions, from the face of Soviet Russia. We will not be needing your mercy, Lord Trotsky!
THEY CONTINUE TO SLANDER
The Communists have well mastered the old Jesuit tactic, "slander and slander, and with luck something will stick."
And they slander.
In powerless spite, pathetic and confused, they spread the most outlandish rumors about events in Kronstadt among the workers and soldiers of Petrograd. At work here, as radio messenger Rosta would have you believe, are the Entente, and French spies, and White Guards, and tsarist generals, and Mensheviks, and SR's, and the Estonian bourgeoisie, and Finnish bankers, and the Entente's counterintelligence. In a word, the entire world has taken up arms against the poor Communists. Moreover, they assure the Petrograd workers that "French agents and former tsarist officers sneaked into Kronstadt, and, using gold, corrupted elements lacking class consciousness."
Well imagine that! And we, the Kronstadters, didn't know a thing about it!
And just in case these "facts" didn't convince the Peter workers, Rosta reports such horrors. "By coincidence at the very moment when a new Republican government is coming into administration in America, and displaying a bent to enter into trade relations with Soviet Russia, the spread of provocative rumors and rigging of disorders in Kronstadt clearly works toward influencing the new American President, and preventing change in American policy relative to Russia. At the same time, the London Conference is conferring, and these provocative rumors must certainly act on the Turkish delegation, making it obedient to the Entente's demands."
This then is what the Communists, confused by an unexpected blow, agreed upon: French agents brought gold to Kronstadt, in order to influence the American President and the pliability of the Turkish delegation! This document of Communist idiocy is so comical, that we print it in full below. This will give the people of Kronstadt a few minutes of comedy.
And how can you relate the, "rigging of disorders in Kronstadt," on the one hand, and the nervousness which has driven the Communists to threaten the shoot the people of Kronstadt "like grouse?" Why so nervous, when all is calm in Kronstadt, and the only thing happening is "rigging of disorders?"
We print the following broadcast, which was received by our station.
(radio messenger Rosta)
The French newspaper Matin reported, from the words of its Helsingfors correspondent, that an uprising against Soviet power had begun in Kronstadt. On February 14th, there was report of a rebellion in the Baltic Fleet, and of the arrest of the commissars of the Baltic Fleet. The Soviet Government supposed, based on previous experience, that agents of French capitalists in league with former tsarist generals were preparing a mutiny in Kronstadt.
As has now become clear, French agents and former tsarist officers sneaked into Kronstadt, and, using gold, corrupted elements lacking class consciousness. The fantastic reports by counterintelligence, spreading legends three weeks ago about an uprising in Kronstadt, were simply ahead of events. Recently, White Guard leaflets have appeared in Kronstadt and Petrograd, and known French spies have been captured during the arrests. At the same time, the SR's began an increased agitation among the workers and sailors in Kronstadt and Petrograd, using the difficult situation with produce and heat.
On February 28th, a reactionary resolution was passed on the ship Petropavlovsk. However, by demand of the sailors it was reworked, and passed on the following day in a new edition. In this was included the demand for new elections to the Soviet. Our comrades did not object, and proposed to form a Commission of sailors' and workers' representatives at the House of Education, to decide the question finally. Elections began, but counterrevolutionary elements decided to ruin this Commission, and demanded before all else that it take place on the Petropavlovsk.
On March 2nd, open action against Soviet power was already occurring on the Petropavlovsk, with the participation of Mensheviks and SR's, who hid under the non-party banner. The official president of the mutineers' organization is the former clerk Petrichenko, and the secretary is Tukin, a sailor, but in fact everything is run by Captain Burkser, and General Kozlovsky is a prominent figure among the former tsarist officers. The tsarist officers Kostromitinov and Shimanovsky [sic] also appeared as leaders of the movement.
On March 2nd, the Soviet of Labor and Defense, decided to declare former general Kozlovsky and his co-conspirators outlawed, to declare the city of Petrograd and Petrograd province under martial law, and to hand over all power in the Petrograd consolidated region to the Defense Committee of the City of Petrograd.
The following day, demoralization began to show among the supporters of the mutinous organization on the Petropavlovsk. The organization's leaders, in order to raise the spirits of their supporters, announced that in the end it would be possible to leave for the Finnish shore. At the same time, the White Guard press spread lying reports, talking as if the Estonian bourgeoisie supported the insurgents.
On March 4th, at an expanded session of the Petrograd Soviet, Comrade Zinoviev gave a thorough report on the events in Kronstadt, after which the meeting unanimously passed an appeal to the workers, sailors and soldiers of Kronstadt. This exposed the dirty work of the spies sent by French counterintelligence, and of the Mensheviks and SR's who had worked on the events which were occurring. The appeal notes that Soviet Power is able to differentiate unknowing, mistaken toilers from intentional counterrevolutionaries. In a military sense, Kronstadt does not present a danger to Petrograd, for the fort of Krasnaya Gorka has command over Kronstadt, and can crush it at any moment. The entire Krasnaya Gorka garrison curses the mutineers, and is bursting for battle.
There is complete calm in Petrograd, and even those small factories where gatherings with attacks on Soviet power by individuals occurred earlier, have recognized the provocation. They have understood what the agents of the Entente and counterrevolution are pushing them to do. An 8 thousand person meeting of Peter seamen unanimously passed a resolution supporting Soviet power, and the Petrograd garrison has not wavered for a moment. Demoralization grows among the sailors, and a meaningful number of the sailors have a dislike for General Kozlovsky and the officers. The number of those deserting to us grows.
Radiograms and newspapers received from abroad show that, simultaneous with the events in Kronstadt, the enemies of Soviet Russia are spreading the most fantastic fabrications abroad, saying that there are disorders in Russia. They say that the Soviet Government has supposedly fled to the Crimea, that Moscow supposedly is in the hands of the rebels, that blood pours in torrents through the streets of Petrograd, and so on.
The SR organization abroad has received from somewhere a huge quantity of tsarist banknotes, and is letting out rumors in order, among other reasons, to raise the rate for tsarist money, and dump it more profitably.
By coincidence at the very moment when a new Republican government is coming into administration in America, and displaying a bent to enter into trade relations with Soviet Russia, the spread of provocative rumors and rigging of disorders in Kronstadt clearly works toward influencing the new American President, and preventing change in American policy relative to Russia. At the same time, the London Conference is conferring, and these provocative rumors must certainly act on the Turkish delegation, making it obedient to the Entente's demands.
There is no doubt that the actions taking place on the Petropavlovsk are merely a component part of a grandiose plan of provocation. This plan, besides creating internal difficulties for Soviet Russia, is intended to shatter her international standing.
Before us in the case at hand is the provocation work of the world reaction of Entente stockbrokers, and of agents of Entente counterintelligence agencies working by their orders. In Russia itself, the main figures carrying out these policies are a tsarist general and former officers, whose activities are supported by Mensheviks and SR's.
No 373 radio station Novaia Golandiia
EXECUTIONS IN ORANIENBAUM
By order of Commissar of the Oranienbaum garrison Sergeev, the following have been executed: Kolesov, Commander of the Division of Red Naval Pilots, and President of the recently formed Oranienbaum Provisional Revolutionary Committee; Balabanov, Secretary of the Committee; Committee members Romanov, Vladimirov and others.
Damnation to the murderers, and eternal glory to the combatants for the true freedom of the people.
THE RAVENS ARE GATHERING
The Communist ravens, Trotsky, Dybenko, Gribov and others, have gathered in Krasnaya Gorka.
LATEST NEWS FROM PETROGRAD
--In Petrograd and Petrograd Province, a state of emergency/seige has been introduced. Movement in the streets is allowed only until 7 P.M.
--Mass arrests and executions of workers and seamen continue.
--The situation is very uneasy. All the laboring masses expect a revolution at any minute.
--There are continuous meetings of the Defense Committee.
--All theatrical entertainments and assemblies are forbidden.
--Passenger trains are stopped. Only military trains are moving.
--The Petrograd newspapers do not print our broadcasts.
KRONSTADT DEMANDS LIBERATION OF HOSTAGES
The following broadcast was sent to the Petrosoviet [Petrograd Soviet].
In the name of the Kronstadt garrison, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt demands that all families of workers, soldiers and sailors imprisoned as hostages by the Petrosoviet be freed within 24 hours. The Kronstadt garrison states that Communists in Kronstadt enjoy complete freedom, and their families absolute inviolability. It does not wish to take an example from the Petrosoviet, since it considers that such methods, even if in desperate anger, are the most shameful and base whatever your beliefs. History has never seen such methods.
seaman PETRICHENKO, President of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee
KILGAST, Secretary
TROTSKY THREATENS DEFEAT
A curious order by Trotsky was broadcast by radio to the Kronstadt populace, and the garrison of the mutinied fronts.
"The Worker-Peasant Government has resolved to immediately return Kronstadt and the mutinous vessels to the command of the Soviet Republic. Therefore, I order all who have raised their hands against the Socialist Fatherland to immediately lay down their arms. Disarm those who resist, and give them into the hands of the Soviet authorities. Free the arrested commissars and other representatives of authority immediately. Only those surrendering unconditionally may count on the mercy of the Soviet Republic. Simultaneously, I am giving the order to prepare for the defeat of the mutiny, and the mutineers, by armed force. Responsibility for the distress which this has brought down on a peaceful populace lies wholly on the heads of the White Guard mutineers. The present warning is the last."
TROTSKY, President of the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic
KAMENEV, for the Chief Directorate
NEGOTIATIONS ON THE DISPATCH OF DELEGATES
The Prov. Rev. Com. received the following radiotelegram from Petrograd.
"Send a broadcast to Petrograd, is it possible to send from Petrograd several persons from the Soviet, non-party and party, to Kronstadt, to find out what is what."
That broadcast was immediately followed by this answer from the Prov. Rev. Com.
"Having received the broadcast from the Petrosoviet, 'is it possible to send from Petrograd several persons from the Soviet, non-party and party, to Kronstadt, to find out what is what,' we inform you that we do not trust the non-party status of your non-party delegates. We propose that representatives be chosen from factories, soldiers and sailors, from among the non-party, in the presence of our delegates.
"Above the number of non-party representatives chosen by the given method, you may add to the delegation up to fifteen percent Communards. It is desirable to receive an answer, with a declared time to send representatives of Kronstadt to Petrograd and representatives of Petrograd to Kronstadt, on March 6th at 18:00 hours. In event of the impossibility of giving an answer at the given time, we ask that you declare your time, and the cause of the delay.
"Means of transport must be supplied to the Kronstadt delegates."
PROV. REV. COM.
APPEAL OF THE "KRASNOARMEITSI" TO THE "KRASNOFLOTSI"
We the soldiers of fort Krasnoarmeets, turn to you, comrades of Krasnoflotskii. We inform you that in Kronstadt, and likewise in the forts and the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, we have not a single general. There is none of the gentry of which the proclamations thrown from airplanes speak so much and so loudly. We say to you that, as Kronstadt was a town of the workers and peasants, so it has remained. The generals are found in service to the Communists.
You say that we have become traitors for some kind of spies. That is a shameless lie. As we were defenders of the freedoms won by the Revolution, so we have remained. We appeal to you not to believe the lies which the bureaucrat Communists drone at you. If you want to learn the truth in this, send to us, to Kronstadt, your own delegation. It will learn the truth, and learn of all that is being done here. It will learn what kind of generals and Entente spies we have.
"The Crew of fort Krasnoarmeets"
RESOLUTIONS
I
The soldiers of fort Krasnoarmeets, having heard the report of a representative of the Prov. Rev. Com, Comrade Vershinin, on the current moment, resolved: "We the soldiers of the above named fort, stand in entirety on guard for the Revolutionary Committee. We will stand, that is defend ourselves, to the final moment, for the Prov. Rev. Com. and for the workers and peasants.
We once again ask the Rev. Com. to widely distribute, by means of print and radiotelegram, our resolution passed at the general Garrison Meeting of Kronstadt, in order to avoid the futile bloodletting to which the Communists call us. This must be done so that the working masses of the town of Petrograd, and of other towns, may learn what is being done here, and what we are fighting for.
We send greetings to the Prov. Rev. Com., as the representatives elected from the broad masses of the entire working class. Standing on guard of the rights won by the laborers, we place ourselves and the fort under the Committee's full command."
DEMIDOV, President
SMIRNOV, Secretary
II
By the General Meeting of the crew of the 4th Division and the Training Crew.
Having heard the report of a representative of the 4th Division Crew, Karpov, and of a representative of the Revolutionary Committee, Eveltis, the following resolution was passed: "In the current moment, when the fate of the country is being decided, we, having taken power into our own hands, have entrusted military leadership to the Revolutionary Committee. We declare to the entire garrison, and to the workers, that we are prepared to die for the freedom of the laboring people, and for liberation from the three-year Communist yoke and terror. We will die, but will not take a single step back. Long live Free Russia of the laboring people."
The resolution was passed unanimously by the Meeting.
WE ARE NOT TAKING REVENGE
The long oppression of the Communist dictatorship over the laborers has called forth the completely natural indignation of the masses. As a result of this, the boycott or removal from service of Communists' relatives has been adopted in several places. This must not be. We are not taking revenge, but defending our laboring interests. It is necessary to act with restraint, and to remove only those who strive through sabotage or slanderous agitation to interfere with restoration of the power and rights of the laborers.
ECONOMIZE ELECTRICITY
It has been noticed that some part of the populace is leaving the electricity on all night, or is not extinguishing the light upon departure from the room. Comrades, remember that we carry on a struggle for our laboring interests. It has become vital, to the degree of emergency, to conserve heating material, which is so necessary to us with the approaching opening of navigation. Conserve electrical energy.
LEAVING THE R.C.P.
Declarations of departure from the Communist Party continue to arrive at the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
I
We the undersigned, servicemen in the Departmental Fines Company, entered the R.C.P. considering it to express the will of the laboring masses. In fact, however, it has shown itself to be a butcher of workers and peasants. The recent events in Peter have demonstrated this, pointing out the complete falsehood of the party leaders, who use all means to hold onto power. The broadcasts of the Moscow Soviet of People's Commissars serve as a shining example of this. We request henceforth that we not be considered members of the R.C.P. We wholly give our support to the resolution of the Garrison Meeting of Kronstadt of March 2nd [sic] of this year. We also ask other comrades recognizing their mistake not to be ashamed to admit it.
I. GUTMAN, I. EFIMOV, V. KUDRIAVTSEV, ANDREEV.
II
Being a candidate member of the R.C.P. from August of 1920, I have found no good in any of its aspirations. Seeing that the Communist Party has become separated from the masses, and does not express the people's will, I leave it. In this difficult time which we are suffering, I wish to work for the benefit of the entire laboring people.
P. ANANIEV, former candidate member of the R.C.P.
III
Also arrived the declarations of departure from the R.C.P. of 1) D. Pisarenko, soldier of the 4th Artillery Division, 2) N. Pusmo, worker in the Naval Artillery Laboratory, 3) O. Kuzmin, guard of the Kronstadt Port, 4) P. Lebedev, serviceman in the Produce Base, 5) N. Kartashev, member of the R.C.P. since 1918.
RESOLUTION
We, Communists of fort Rif, having discussed the current moment, and having heard the call of the Provisional Bureau of the R.C.P. in Kronstadt, have reached the following conclusion. For three whole years, great numbers of opportunists and careerists have poured into our party. As a result of this, bureaucratism and a criminal attitude toward the struggle with collapse have developed.
Our party has always placed before itself the work of struggling against all enemies of the proletariat and working class, and we now declare openly that we will also in the future, as honest sons of the people, defend the victories of the laborers. We will not allow a single secret or open White Guard to use the temporary, difficult situation of our Soviet Republic. At the first attempt to raise a hand against Soviet power we will be able to repulse to the counterrevolutionaries as necessary. We have already declared, and declare once again, that we are under the command of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which has given itself the goal of creating Soviets of the laboring and proletariat class.
Long live Soviet Power, the true defender of the rights of laborers!
(signature), President of the meeting of Communists of fort Rif
(signature), Secretary of the meeting
PRODUCE
FROM GORKOMMUNA
For the period from March 8th through 14th inclusive, the land and naval garrison of the fortress will receive daily, in place of the previous bread ration: a half pound of bread, half a can of preserved meat and a quarter pound of meat.
The civilian populace will receive produce according to the following norms:
Letter A daily: one pound of oats, half a can of preserved meat, a quarter pound of meat and a one time additional half pound of sugar and quarter pound of vegetable oil.
Letter C daily: one pound of oats, half a can of preserved meat, a quarter pound of meat and a one time additional half pound of sugar and quarter pound of vegetable oil.
For children:
Series A daily: half a pound of wheat, barley or dried bread, half a can of preserved meat and a one time additional can of preserved milk, half pound of sugar and quarter pound of table butter.
Series B and C daily: half a pound of barley, wheat or dried bread, half a can of preserved meat, a quarter pound of meat and a one time additional half pound of sugar and quarter pound of table butter.
Today bread will be issued for one day, with the appropriate coupon being cut.
N. KAPUSTIN, member of the Rev. Com.
NOTICE
The Town Health Department brings to the attention of all doctors, doctors' assistants, and citizens, that under issuance of prescriptions for additional food, the following rules must be followed: in the prescription must be specified the first and family names of the patient, the exact diagnosis and the address.
First in order of fullfillment are prescriptions issued to children suffering from infectious diseases, and then from pulmonary and renal diseases, and then adults with infectious diseases.
Prescriptions are given to the selection commission at the Town Hospital from 10 to 12 A.M. daily. Return issue takes place on the following day from 11 to 12 A.M., with prescriptions not picked up in 3 days being considered annulled. All prescriptions issued before March 5th are also annulled.
The present rules were worked out in consultation with doctors, doctors' assistants, a representative of the Town Hospital and the Gorkommuna of the City Health Department. This consultation requests all comrade doctors and doctor's assistants to view the issuance of prescriptions with the highest degree of care, keeping in memory the produce difficulties being suffered by the Republic.
PLUME, Head of the City Health Department
FROM THE ADMINISTRATION DEPARTMENT OF KRONSOVDEP
1) The Administration Department instructs all Uchkoms to take measures to clean the footpaths of the town of snow, and also to bring the courtyards into order, involving the broad masses of the populace in the work. The Audit Commission is instructed to take active part in the completion of the works.
2) All Uchkoms having gathered passports from citizens are instructed to return such to the citizens into their own hands.
ANNOUNCEMENT
All military units, workers' associations and organizations may receive 'Izvestiia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee' and pamphlets at Sevtsentropechat in accordance with the set norm.
NUMBER 6
Tuesday, March 8th, 1921
TROTSKY'S FIRST SHOT IS A COMMUNIST SOS
FROM THE PROV. REV. COM.
At 6:45 P.M., the Communist batteries in Sestroretsk and Lisy Nos opened fire first on the Kronstadt forts.
The forts accepted the challenge, and quickly forced the batteries to become silent. Following this, Krasnaya Gorka opened fire, receiving worthy answer from the battleship Sevastopol.
Occasional artillery duelling continues.
Two of our soldiers were wounded, and taken to the hospital.
There is no damage anywhere.
THE FIRST SHOT
They began the bombardment of Kronstadt. Well, so be it; we're ready. We will measure our strengths.
They rush to act, and yes, they are forced to hurry. The laborers of Russia, despite all the Communist lies, understand what a great endeavor of liberation from three years' slavery is being created in Revolutionary Kronstadt. The butchers are unnerved. The victim of their shameless bestiality, Soviet Russia, is slipping from their torture chamber, and with her, dominion over the laboring people is slipping finally from their criminal hands.
The Communist government will send an SOS. The weeklong existence of Free Kronstadt is proof of their powerlessness. One moment more and the worthy answer of our glorious revolutionary ships and forts will sink the ships of the Soviet pirates. They are forced into battle with Revolutionary Kronstadt, which has raised the banner, "Power to Soviets, and not Parties."
WE AND THEY
Not knowing how to retain the power which is falling from their hands, the Communists are resorting to the most putrid, provocative methods. Their base newspapers have mobilized all forces to set fire to the people's masses, and to paint the Kronstadt as a White Guard movement. Now the gang of "patented" scoundrels has thrown out the slogan, "Kronstadt has sold out to Finland." Their shameless press is already spattering poisonous spit, and now that there has been no success in convincing the proletariat that White Guards were working in Kronstadt, they are attempting to play on national feelings.
All the world already knows from our broadcasts what the Kronstadt garrison and workers are fighting for, but the Communists attempt to twist the meanings of events before the Peter brothers. The Communist oprichnina has surrounded the people of Peter with a tight ring of cadet bayonets and the party "guard," and Maliuta Skuratov (Trotsky) does not allow delegates from the non-party workers and soldiers to enter Kronstadt. He fears the danger that they will learn the entire truth, and that that truth in one instant will sweep the Communists away. He fears that the laboring people, with newly restored sight, will take power in their own work-hardened hands.
That is why the Petrosoviet did not answer our radiotelegram requesting the dispatch to Kronstadt of actual non-party comrades. Fearing for their skins, the Communist leaders hide the truth. They let out rumors that White Guards are at work in Kronstadt, that the Kronstadt proletariat has sold out to Finland and to French spies, and that the Finns have already organized an army, in order, together with the Kronstadt mutineers, to occupy Petrograd, and so on.
To all this we can answer only one way: all power to the Soviets! Away from that power, hands stained with the blood of those perished for the cause of freedom, for the battle with White Guardism, landed gentry and the bourgeoisie! Peasant, calmly work your land; worker, to your bench!
LIBERATED KRONSTADT, TO THE WORKING WOMEN OF THE WORLD
(A Broadcast)
Today is a worldwide holiday, the Day of Working Women. We the people of Kronstadt, under the thunder of cannons, under the explosions of shells sent at us by the enemies of the laboring people, the Communists, send our fraternal greetings to you, the working women of the world. We send greetings from Red Kronstadt, from the Kingdom of Liberty. Let our enemies try to destroy us. We are strong; we are undefeatable.
We wish you fortune, to all the sooner win freedom from all oppression and coercion.
Long live the Free Revolutionary Working Woman.
Long live the Worldwide Social Revolution.
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF KRONSTADT
March 8th, 1921
MAY ALL THE WORLD KNOW
And so, the first shot has rung out. Bloody Fieldmarshal Trotsky, standing to his waist in the fraternal blood of laborers, opened first fire on Revolutionary Kronstadt, risen against the Communist government for the establishment of true Soviet power. Without a single shot, without a drop of blood, we, soldiers, seamen and workers of Kronstadt, threw down the Communist dominion, and even spared their lives. They desire to once again, under threat of bombardment, tie their authority to us.
Not wanting bloodshed, we proposed that non-party delegates be sent from the Petrograd proletariat, that they might learn that there is a struggle for power in Kronstadt. But the Communists hid this from the Petrograd workers, and opened fire, the usual answer of the sham worker-peasant government to the demands of the laboring people.
May all the world of workers know that we, protectors of Soviet power, stand guard over the victories of the Social Revolution. We will be victorious, or die under the ruins of Kronstadt, struggling for the bloody cause of the laboring people. The workers of all the world will judge. The blood of innocents is on the heads of the Communist beasts, who are drunk with power.
Long live Soviet power!
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF KRONSTADT.
WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR
Carrying out the October Revolution, the working class hoped to achieve its emancipation. The result, however, was the creation of a still greater enslavement of the human personality.
The power of police-gendarme monarchism passed into the hands of usurpers, the Communists, who brought to the laborers, instead of freedom, the fear every minute of falling into the torture chamber of the Cheka. With their horrors, they have many times exceeded the gendarme government of the tsarist regime.
Bayonets, bullets and the harsh cries of the oprichniks from the Cheka, there is what the toiler in Soviet Russia gained after many battles and sufferings. The Communist authorities have replaced the hammer and sickle, glorious arms of the laboring state, in fact with the bayonet and prison bars. They have done this for the sake of preserving a calm, unsaddened life for the new bureaucracy of Communist commissars and bureaucrats.
But what is most putrid and criminal of all is the creation by the Communists of a moral cabal. They have laid hand even on the laborers' internal world, forcing them to think in their way alone.
With the aid of the bureaucratic trade unions, they have tied the workers to their benches, having made labor not a joy, but a new serfdom. To protests by peasants, expressed in spontaneous uprisings, and by workers, forced into strikes by the very condition of life, they answer with mass executions, and with such bloodthirstiness that they don't have to borrow any from the tsarist generals.
Laboring Russia, first to raise the red banner of labor's liberation, is soaked through with the blood of those tortured for the glory of the Communist dominion. In this sea of the blood, the Communists drown all the great and light voices and slogans of the laboring revolution.
It has become ever more sharply visible, and now is completely apparent, that the R.C.P is not defender of the laborers, as it has presented itself. Rather, the interests of the laboring mass are foreign to it. Having achieved power, it fears only to lose it, and for this end all means are allowable: slander, violence, fraud, murder, and revenge on the families of rebels.
The long patience of the laborers has come to an end.
The country, in battle with oppression and violence, is lit here and there with the glow of uprisings. Worker stoppages have flared up, but the Bolshevist okhranniks have not slept, and have taken all measures to avoid and repress the unavoidable 3rd Revolution.
But it has arrived all the same, and is being carried out by the hands of laborers. The Communist generals see clearly that this is the people, convinced of those generals' betrayal of the ideas of socialism, who have arisen. They shake in their skins, knowing that there is no place for them to hide from the toilers' anger. All the same, they try, with the help of their oprichniks, to frighten the rebels with prisons, executions and other bestialities. But life itself under the yoke of the Communist dictatorship has become more terrible than death.
The rebellious laboring mass has come to understand that in battle with the Communists, and with the renewed serfdom they have given, there can be no middle ground. It is necessary to carry through to the end. They pretend to make concessions: in Petrograd Province they remove the anti-profiteer roadblock detachments, 10 million in gold is assigned for purchase of produce abroad. But it is necessary to point out that behind this bait is hidden the iron hand of the master. This is the hand of a dictator who desires, having waited out the unrests, to compensate his concessions a hundred-fold.
No, there can be no middle ground. Victory or Death!
This is exemplified by Red Kronstadt, terror of counterrevolutionaries of right and left.
Here a great new revolutionary step has been taken. Here has been raised the banner of a rebellion for liberation from the three year violence and oppression of Communist dominion, which has eclipsed the three-hundred year yoke of monarchism. Here in Kronstadt has been laid the first stone of the Third Revolution, which is breaking the last fetters from the laboring masses, and opening a wide new path for socialist creativity. This new revolution stirs the laboring masses of both East and West, being an example of the new socialist construction, opposed to the bureaucratic Communist "creativity." It convinces the laboring masses abroad, by the testimony of their own eyes, that everything created here until now by the will of workers and peasants was not socialism.
Without a single shot, without a drop of blood, the first step has been completed. The laborers do not need blood. They spill it only in moments of self defense. We have enough restraint, despite all the disgraceful acts of the Communists, to not be limited by their isolation from the life of society. We do this in order that they would not obstruct the revolutionary work with false and spiteful agitation.
The workers and peasants advance unstoppably, leaving behind themselves both the Uchredilka with its bourgeois structure, and the Communist Party dictatorship with its Cheka and state capitalism, a deadly noose which has snared the neck of the laboring masses, and threatens to strangle them absolutely.
The present Revolution gives the laborers the possibility of having, finally, their own freely elected Soviets, working without any and all violent party pressure, and to reform the bureaucratic trade unions into free organizations of workers, peasants and the laboring intelligentsia. At last, the police stick of the Communist autocracy is broken.
REMEMBER THAT WE ARE THE SHOCK TROOPS OF THE REVOLUTION!
Workers are shock troops! Kronstadt is enduring a serious moment of struggle for the liberation of Soviet Russia from the Communist yoke.
We the people of Kronstadt, recognizing this, must all show unflagging fortitude, and show that in the struggle, no sacrifices are too terrible for us. We have become each other's family, unified by a single striving for victory or death. We will share with each other the last tiny morsel. So that the populace would not hunger, the garrison shares its own allowances. All must be even, and not some hungry and some full.
Would that it were not so, but we will not leave our work. On the contrary, we will take after it all the more firmly. Our revolution is the Revolution of Labor, and its name, all to the benches, all to the hammer! All for free labor! You are shock troops at work. Be also thus the shock troops of the Revolution. Forge the Revolution, supporting the free Socialist economy. Remember that on you first is laid the shock work of saving Soviet Russia from the Communist yoke.
SOVIET POWER WILL FREE THE LABORING PEASANTRY
FROM THE COMMUNIST YOKE
WHAT IS BEING DONE IN PETROGRAD?
The Helsingfors newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet, in No 60, reports the following news from Petrograd.
--The Petrograd workers are on strike, and are demonstratively leaving the factories. With red banners they are demanding a change of government and the overthrow of the Communists.
Sailors are joining the demonstrators.
The garrison shares the feelings of the masses, but for now is remaining passive.
--Red units from the Korelian [Karelian] Isthmus have been rushed across to Petrograd. As it was clarified, the cadets have been recalled.
--At the Laferme tobacco factory, the Secretary of the R.C.P. called for order among the workers, but was whistled down and driven off.
--At the Putilovsky Factory, several persons, Communist members of the factory committee, have been killed.
APPEAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF WORKER-PEASANT INSPECTION
Due to the present moment, the purposes of the department of Worker-Peasant Inspection being what they are, since control is always a necessity in the interests of all citizens, independent of the situation which has formed, and since the majority of the workers in the Inspection were Communists, a number of whom are currently isolated, and the remaining Communists may also be isolated, the work of control may stop.
Now, as earlier, an unconscious element may carry out various thefts of the people's property in a period without control. Therefore, the Revolutionary Troika of the Worker-Peasant Inspection appeals to all employees formerly working in control to come help temporarily, until the new elections. In this way, you may preserve the necessary and normal order in all Soviet organizations.
A. GALKIN, President
THE TRAGEDY OF FORT KRASNOARMEISKII
(One of the Communist methods of party propaganda.)
The editors are swamped with declarations by soldiers, sailors and workers of departure from the R.C.P. Therefore, we are printing only the family names of those leaving the party, and the most characteristic declarations. Today we are given the opportunity to impart a historic document, testifying how this criminal party enlisted members.
In mid-July, 1919 began the attack by Rodzianko on Petrograd. In connection with this, unrest began in the Red Army. This unrest spread to Krasnaya Gorka and Kronstadt. Trotsky gave the order to liquidate it, whatever that might require. The Communists mobilized their butchers, and a bloody reprisal began.
On July 13th, a steamship came to fort Krasnoarmeiskii, carrying a Communist detachment, with Commissars Razin, Medvedev and Sotnikov in command. Razin ordered the bugler to play assembly. The crew of the fort left their barracks, and were ordered to form up in a single line. Razin came forward and addressed the men of the fort with the following words. "Comrades! I have brought you reinforcements, and replacements for the tired. It is, of course, impossibile to free everyone, but a fifth part may go on leave."
After this, Razin began to count out every fifth man, who was then led away to the left flank. In all, 55 people were counted out. "Play retreat," Razin commanded, and ordered the remaining soldiers to go up into the fort tower, and to form up in one rank facing the newly arrived detachment.
Following that, Razin took the 55 people who had been counted out to a given location at the south shore, and formed them up in one rank, opposite which the newly arrived unit arranged itself.
When all these preparations were completed, Razin read them a death sentence. Three volleys rang out, and the 55 soldiers, before the eyes of their comrades standing in the fort tower, fell as victims to the unquenchable bloodthirst of the insane Communists.
Three comrades remained alive (one of them was wounded), and the butcher Razin spared them.
The second act of the tragedy began. By order of the butchers, a pit was dug, the not yet cold corpses dumped in and covered with carbolic acid, the earth was evened, and the fraternal grave was covered with cement.
Finally, Razin ordered the remaining crew to enroll in the party, and for those not wishing to do so to go out to the fence, forewarning them that the fate of those just executed awaited them.
What was there left to do?
Thus did they recruit these new Communists.
Somewhat later, the commander of a machine gun crew arrived at the fort. The commissars suspected that he had come to Kronstadt for propaganda and... yet another innocent victim washed the fort's assembly ground with his blood.
And the next day was issued a calm order "on removal from rations."
We print it in full on the next page.
§ 10.
The soldiers named below, of the 5th, 6th and 7th Batteries, and the 11th Squad of the Machine Gun Crew, killed by the authority of the Provisional Revolutionary Court of Baltflot, are to be removed from the divisional, battery and crew rosters, and from all types of rations and allowances, as of June 20th of this year.
NoNo in order
First and Family Names
NoNo in order
First and Family Names
1
Georgii Neiberg.
28
Ivan Gryzunov.
2
Mikhail Babkin.
29
Mikhail Sharapov.
3
Aleksandr Geroev.
30
Semen Anisimov.
4
Nikita Ivanichkov.
31
Vasilii Shvagurtsev.
5
Prokopii Liakishev.
32
Ivan Vorobiev.
6
Petr Ulianov.
33
Vasilii Golubev.
6TH BATTERY
34
Aleksei Klepin.
7
Sergei Veselov.
35
Vasilii Shapnev.
8
Nikolai Tsabatov.
36
Nikolai Manuilov.
9
Grigorii Lazarev.
37
Aleksandr Fedotov.
10
Ivan Chaikin.
38
Petr Larionov.
11
Moisei Ivanchik.
39
Ivan Derbyshev.
12
Ivan Shatov.
40
Ivan Filatov.
13
Ignatii Zhukov.
41
Mikhail Dunaev.
14
Aleksei Kruchkov.
42
Nikolai Kolotushkin.
15
Ivan Zhikorev.
43
Vasilii Turkich, 6th battery.
16
Ivan Mikhailin.
17
Petr Kuibanov.
44
Gerogii Vershinin, 5th battery.
18
Ivan Karpin.
19
Matvei Gagarin.
45
Gennadii Feoktistov, 5th battery.
20
Vasilii Gagarin.
21
Maksim Rodin.
46
Pavel Potapov, 5th battery.
22
Vasilii Levin.
23
Vasilii Talalaev.
II SQU. MACH. GUN CREW
24
Grigorii Danilov.
47
Vladimir Ivashkevich.
25
Petr Simanov.
48
Pavel Sokka.
7H BATTERY
49
Vasilii Nazarov.
26
Ivan Kuznetsov
50
Fiodor Nagovitsyn.
27
Aleksei Kokorin.
51
Aleksei Ivanov.
SOURCE: report of the Commander of fort OBRUCHEV, No 624, of June 2nd, 1919.
truly signed: KARPOV, Commander of the 2nd Division
NEVEROVSKY, Commissar
attested: MAKSIMENKO, clerk of the construction unit
No explanations are necessary.
Comrade Soldiers! There is the kind of freedom which the Communists have given you. There is the kind of authority against which we arose, and the people against whom the Provisional Revolutionary Committee gives the call to arms. Yesterday, a handfull of witnesses to this execution, being in service until this time at fort Krasnoarmeiskii, passed the following resolution at their meeting.
We, Communists of fort Krasnoarmeiskii, 6th Battery, give our support to the worker-peasant power. We swear before representatives of our troika who are carrying on joint work with the Prov. Rev. Com. of the Town of Kronstadt, that we will stand to the last at our posts, and achieve true liberation for workers and peasants. We swear that we will not walk the path of lies by which the Communists' bureaucrat representatives drove us into the R.C.P. with falsehood, violence and the threat of execution.
A. Polunichev, A. Remin, D. Bukanov, G. Ivanov, I. Moshnikov, P. Pavlov, N. Yulin, M. Tretiakov, V. Poliakov, I. Ivanov, F. Mikhailov, M. Aksenov, M. Balabanov, N. Ivanov, A. Kondratiev, V. Tsvetoshin, Bogdanov, O. Potapov, Novozhilov.
We all, workers and peasants, are striving to achieve a free and unoppressed life, and therefore request that we not be considered members of the R.C.P., but as non-party comrades.
KRONSTADT IS CALM
Yesterday, March 7th, the laborers' enemies, Communists, opened fire on Kronstadt. The populace met the bombardment with spirit. Workers expressed a comradely desire to take up arms. It is clearly seen that the laboring populace of Kronstadt lives with exactly the same interests and aspirations as the Provisional Revolutionary Committee elected by it.
Despite the opening of military action, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee did not even find it necessary to declare a state of siege. Who need it fear? Not its own soldiers, sailors, workers and laboring intelligentsia.
It is a different matter in Petrograd. There, due to the emergency situation which has been declared, movement about the city is only allowed until 7 P.M. Tyrants, of course, must fear their own laboring populace.
RESOLUTION
Passed by the general meeting of the united crews and garrison of fort Konstantin, March 7th, 1921
We the seamen and soldiers of the united military crews and garrison of fort Konstantin, having heard the report of Comrade Nikolaev on the current moment, find: that all the actions and measures of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee are completely fair. We further find that these actions fully express the opinions of the honest laboring proletariat and laboring peasantry, which is presently striving with all its strength to liberate itself from the damned Communist yoke. There has been enough of the Communists riding on the people's neck without accountability or responsibility. May the murderer Trotsky know that all his proclamations thrown out over Kronstadt represent nothing to us, revolutionary seamen, soldiers and workers, except the free provision of besieged Kronstadt with paper. Their pogrom calls and threats are not worrisome to us, and neither is their stinking slander. For we well know that behind us will come the entire honest laboring masses of our dear free Motherland, terribly tortured and robbed by traitorous Communism. We have all sworn as one to carry through to the end with our holy cause of liberating the laboring masses, which we have begun. May all those Communal [sic] scarecrows know that only by crossing over our corpses will they be able to take control of free Kronstadt. We have decided one thing, either to die, or to exit honorably as victors.
Long live the Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt!
Long live the revolutionary seamen, soldiers and workers of free Kronstadt!
Down with the bankrupt commune!
Down with bloodthirsty Trotsky and his cohorts!
(signature), President of the meeting
(signature), Secretary
PRODUCE
FROM GORPRODKOM
Today, bread is issued for March 3rd: by cards of letter A, half a pound for bread coupon No 27.
By cards of letter B, in place of bread, four pounds of oats is issued for four days, March 8th, 9th and 11th, for bread coupon No 27.
By cards of series A, for produce coupon No 4, a one pound can of preserved milk, is issued from stores No 5 and 14.
By children's cards of series B and C, in place of bread, two pounds of wheat is issued for four days, through March 11th; by series B for bread coupon No 4, and C for bread coupon No 27.
Counted toward the bread norm for the four days through March 11th, two cans of preserved meat are issued to all categories from all stores; by cards of letter A and B and series C for bread coupon No 26, of series A for produce coupon No 5 and of series C for bread coupon No 5.
Issue of all produce noted is limited to the amount delivered to the stores.
LEVAKOV, for the President of Gorprodkom
NUMBER 7
Wednesday, March 9th, 1921
Lenin said, "Communism is Soviet power plus electrification," but the people have become convinced that Bolshevist Communism is commissarocracy plus executions.
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
(March 8th, 1921)
Our artillery destroyed the railroad line near Martyshkino.
In Oranienbaum, fire broke out in the region of Kitaisky Dvorets.
Our artillery bombarded the northern and southern shores of the gulf. The adversary took heavy losses.
In the town, not a single building suffered from the adversary's bombardment. Windows in several houses were broken by concussion.
Gromov, former Commissar of the Kronstadt Fortress, was killed in a skirmish with our forward posts.
THEY ARE SHOOTING OUR CHILDREN
They don't have to get used to spilling the blood of innocents. They have already begun throwing bombs from airplanes over the dwellings of peaceful residents of Kronstadt. The first bomb was thrown March 8th, at a few minutes before six. It fell in the eaves of a house, and the whole matter ended with the ruin of the house's facade, and the breaking of glass in nearby houses. Wounded, fortunately lightly, was a boy of 13 years.
WHAT IS THE PRICE OF VICTORY?
With the adversary's first shots, the restraint and determination of our revolutionary garrison has all the more clearly appeared. It is bursting for battle, but it strikes its blows not just as they chance to fall, but where they are needed.
All are bursting to be armed, not excluding old men and young boys. The show of spirit is remarkable. The laboring populace and garrison have decided to fight to the end. All are inspired by the single thought of breaking up the last remains of the Communist yoke. There is no turning back. There is only the path forward--to Free Labor and Soviet power. The rebels' enthusiasm and restraint ensure our victory.
Kronstadt's red eagles are writing a bright new page in the history of Soviet Russia. Certainty in ourselves and selfless devotion to the laborers' interests--these are the strengths which guarantee our victory over Communist Fieldmarshal Trotsky.
It is different in the adversary's camp. As deserters and prisoners report, Trotsky employs the usual Communist means of convincing the laborers, he places machine guns in the rear of their attacking troops.
Against the rebels' enthusiasm, the adversary has placed the enthusiasm of the whip and firing squad.
HEAR THIS TROTSKY!
In their broadcasts, the Communists have slung tubs of mud at the leaders of the Third Revolution, who stand for true Soviet power and against the outrages committed by the commissars.
We have not hidden this from the Kronstadt populace, and have fully printed all their slanderous attacks in our Izvestiia.
We have nothing to fear. The citizens know how the revolution took place, and who made it. The workers and peasants know that among the garrison there are neither tsarist generals nor White Guards.
For its own part, the Prov. Rev. Com. sent a broadcast to Petrograd demanding that the hostages taken by the Communists - workers, sailors and their families, and also political prisoners - be freed from the overfilled prisons. In a second broadcast, we proposed that non-party delegates be sent to us in Kronstadt. They, being convinced on the spot of the true course of events, could open the eyes of Peter's laboring populace.
And what did the Communists do? They hid these broadcasts from the workers and soldiers. Units of Fieldmarshal Trotsky's troops which have crossed to our side brought us Petrograd newspapers, and there is not a word about our broadcasts in them!
Was it that long ago that these hucksters, used to playing with marked cards, were yelling that there shouldn't be any secrets from the people, even diplomatic?
Hear this Trotsky! As long as you are still running the people's court, you can shoot innocents in whole droves, but you can't shoot the truth. It will come out, and then you and your oprichnina will be forced to answer.
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE UNIONS
Under the Communist dictatorship, the mission of the trade unions, and of their administrations in particular, was reduced to a minimum. In four years of the revolutionary-trade union movement in Socialist Russia, our trade unions had no chance to be purely class organizations. This situation came about not by their fault, but purely thanks to the policy of the ruling party, which strived for a centralized, "Communist" development of the masses. Therefore, the work of the trade unions came down to nothing but completely unecessary correspondence, for the compilation of information about the number of members of one or another industrial union, specialization, party status and so on.
Relative to the economic-cooperative construction of the Republic and the cultural development of the trade union workers, nothing was undertaken. And that is completely understandable, since if the unions had been given the right of broad independent action, then the entire order of centralized Communist construction would have been destroyed, and together with it would have collapsed the need for commissars and politotdels.
These are undoubtably the situations which have made the working masses forsake the unions, since the latter had become a Communist gendarme yoke, holding down the laboring classes.
With the overthrow of the R.C.P. dictatorship, the role of the Trade Unions must fundamentally change. Therefore, the newly elected unions and administrations in the trade movement must fulfill the great combat mission of educating the masses in the cultural-economic construction of the country. They must pour a new, invigorating stream into their activity, and become the expressers of the people's interests.
The Soviet Socialist Republic may only be strong when its administration belongs to the laboring classes in the form of renewed trade unions.
We will undertake this cause, comrade workers! We will form new unions, free from all opression. In them is our strength.
S. FOKIN
FIRST MARTYRS FOR THE 3 REVOLUTION
(About the executions in Oranienbaum)
On March 2nd, a rumor was passed in Oranienbaum that Kronstadt had driven away Kalinin.
Sailors from Kronstadt had been arrested at the train station.
The First Aeronautic Naval Division has always stood on guard of the Revolution, and sensitively listened to the voice of the laboring people.
The Kronstadt resolution was delivered. In a moment, the news passed to all the seamen of the Aero. Div., and at 6 P.M. they gathered in their club to discuss the new situation. The Communists got nervous and called the Politodel, from which the R.C.P. organizer Perekhov and other Communists arrived. The division commissar was horrified when we elected Comrade Kolesov, Commander of the Aero. Nav. Division, as President, Comrade Balobanov as Secretary, and Comrade Romanov as Assistant Secretary of a Revolutionary Committee, and especially when the entire division unanimously supported the Kronstadt resolution.
The sailors rejoiced that power had passed into the hands of the laboring people. The Communists vainly attempted to provoke us, saying that we did not have the right to revolt against Communist Soviet power. The sailors, in revolutionary ecstasy, replied to this that death was better than the Communist yoke, and with the cry, "Long live the Kronstadt sailors, soldiers and workers," went to the hangar where the seaplanes were located.
In the hangar we gathered for a second time. Comrade Balabanov [sic] instructed that all seamen should be armed, but several, afraid of spilling blood, did not agree with this order, and as we will see below, paid cruelly for their love of peace and their trusting natures.
The seamen chose three delegates for communication with Kronstadt, and decided to set a division watch of 20 persons. At this time the Communists were listening in on us, and reported everything to the Politotdel, where a Communist committee of defense was gathered. Its president, commissar Sergeev, ordered military units to capture the rebel sailors, who had clearly crossed to the side of the White Guards. We went to our separate homes, since the Communists assured us that they wouldn't use any armed force or arrests against us.
Our delegates, sent to neighboring units with the Kronstadt fortress' resolution, were arrested by chekists on the way. Comrade Kolesov wasn't able to use the telephone (central reported that it was out of order) to communicate with Kronstadt and with other units. In fact, Sergeev, commissar of the Oranienbaum garrison, called the Petrograd Defense Committee and asked them to send an armored train with an echelon of cadets as quickly as possible, and urgently called for 3 batteries of light artillery, and a squadron of cavalry cadets. They armed all the Communists from head to toe, supplied them with revolvers and machine guns, issued each soldier 2 lb. of bread and 1 lb. of meat, and then sent them to the brigade headquarters. Then the Communists set about disarming the young seamen and the escort crew. They arrested the most untrustworthy, and sent them to the Cheka. Some who escaped from under arrest informed Comrade Kolesov of what was happening. He answered, "Let them make their arrests. We don't fear them, and won't make any opposition, since our forces are too small, just a 30 person guard."
At 5 A.M. on March 3rd, the armored train Chernomorets and an echelon of cadets arrived from Petrograd. At 7 A.M., just as it had begun to get light, the armored train came up to the building of the Naval Aeronautic Division and aimed its cannons and machine guns point blank. Cadets rushed at the seamen from all sides, and disarmed them. The infamous beast Dulkis, from the Kronstadt Cheka, pointed his revolver at Comrade Kolesov with the animal scream, "Don't move White Guard, or I shoot." After this, they arrested our commander and took him under guard to the Cheka, where they began to bring the sailors arrested in private apartments.
After several hours, the chekists set about the interrogations. After the interrogation of Comrade Kolesov and 44 seamen of the Aeronautic Naval Division, at 4 o'clock on March 3rd a company of cadets took them past Martyshkino for execution. Soon the crack of small arms volleys was heard.
The Communists of the Aero. Nav. Division made sure to immediately arrest the wives and relatives of the comrades who had been saved from the terrible clutches of the Cheka.
Cadets arrived from Orel, Nizhni Novgorod and Moscow. Three more armored trains came, and were put on the reserve tracks of the town of Oranienbaum. After this, heavy artillery and the Moscow Cheka arrived.
For whom were these armed forces and oprichniki? Clearly, for the workers, peasants, sailors and soldiers who had begun to want freedom for labor and fairness.
Execution did not scare us. We decided to be victorious, or to die the glorious death of a revolutionary seaman, who has proved that he is not a gendarme, and not a servant of the Cheka which protects the Communist Party autocracy which torments our wives and children in its torture chambers.
Down with the Communist oppressors, who rob our fathers!
Long live Soviet power!
ABUSE OF THE WHITE FLAG
A white flag raised during military action means a temporary ceasefire, to carry out negotiations between the adversaries. Thus it has always been, among all nations.
But it is not so with the Communists. They turn the flag of peace into a sign of betrayal, and under its cover carry out their stinking works. Yesterday, March 8th, soldiers with a white flag set out from Oranienbaum in the direction of Kronstadt. Taking the advancing soldiers as truce envoys, two of our comrades went out on horseback to meet them, having beforehand removed from themselves all weapons. One of them rode right up to the adversary's group, and the second stopped at a small distance.
Barely had our truce envoy said a few words when the Communists threw themselves on him, pulled him from the horse, and carried him away with themselves. The second comrade managed to ride away back to Kronstadt.
The example is worthy of attention, to once more be convinced of the methods which the Communists use in their struggle against the laboring masses.
HOW THE COMMUNISTS LIE
--Tukhachevsky, commander of the army operating against Kronstadt, told a reporter from Kransnyi Komandir, "We have received reports that the civilian population of Kronstadt is receiving almost no produce."
--The infantry regiment quartered in Kronstadt has refused to join the mutineers, and not allowed itself to be disarmed.
--The main instigators of the mutiny are planning to escape to Finland.
--A non-party sailor who escaped from Kronstadt reports that on March 4th, General Kozlovsky spoke at a sailors' meeting in Kronstadt. In his speech he called for strong authority, and decisive action against supporters of the Soviets.
--The mood in Kronstadt is one of demoralization. The masses of the populace impatiently await the end of the mutiny, and demand that the White Guard leaders be surrendered to the Soviet government.
This is what the Communists write about us. These are the means to which they resort, tring to blacken our movement before the laboring people, and by the same means to lengthen their own existence, if only by an hour.
S. KAMENEV FLED FROM ORANIENBAUM
A March 7th issue of Krasnyi Komandir, provided to us by prisoners, reports, "the Commander in Chief of all armed forces of the Republic, Comrade S. Kamenev, having arrived in Petrograd in connection with the events in Kronstadt, has returned to Moscow."
A COMMUNIST ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE THE FORTS
On March 6th, Comrade Afanasiev came to Comrade Ballot, a Communist, for some books. The latter attempted to convince him to escape from fort Rif to the Oranienbaum shore. In preparation, he had found out where the guards and machine guns were placed, and where crossing the sea would be least unpleasant.
He proposed that they dress all in white, since the night was light. (The conversation took place at two o'clock in the morning.) But of course, Comrade Afanasiev did not agree with him, arrested him and took him to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.
Under interrogation, Comrade Ballot admitted that he wanted to escape to the Oranienbaum shore, and was searching for a companion so that it wouldn't be so boring. He says that he wanted to escape because he was afraid of execution. On him were found 28 thousand rubles, and identification papers.
On March 6th, a General Meeting of the crew occured at fort Krasnoarmeiskii, at which Communists were in attendance along with the others. After a report by Comrade Vershinin on the current moment and how things stand in Kronstadt, demoralization was noticed among the crew, since the Communists located there were zealously carrying on their malicious agitation. They were making the crew feel that they were still their lords, and did not intend to give up their place. After the slogan proposed by Comrade Vershinin, "Victory or Death," the crew came to the point of view, better death than surrender.
Then the Communists, 50 persons in number, attempted to escape from the fort, but were caught in a searchlight, restrained, disarmed and turned over to the authority of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt.
At the present time, a cheerful and excited atmosphere and complete support for revolutionary Kronstadt are noted at fort Krasnoarmeiskii.
A RESOLUTION BY DESERTERS
The truth about Kronstadt has already broken through all the obstacles set up by the high-handed Communists, and units of the adversary's troops surrender to us in droves. They are now being convinced that the soldiers, seamen and workers of Kronstadt are fighting against oppressors, fighting for true Soviet power. They see that it was not generals (of which, by the way, there are none here) but the tortured laboring people itself that overthrew the oprichnik-Communists.
We print below a resolution passed unanimously by 700 deserters.
"We, soldiers, peasants, workers, cadets and officers, having heard a report on the situation of Kronstadt, entirely give our support to the resolution of the Garrison Assembly of the town of Kronstadt, and express our faith in the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. We wish to go hand in hand with it, and at its first call we will enter anew into the ranks of the laboring masses, and will struggle against all Soviet bureaucratism and unfairness.
SKEPKO, President
IVLEV, Secretary
ALL POWER TO SOVIETS, AND NOT PARTIES
RESOLUTIONS
I
We, candidate members of the R.C.P. of the Union of Workers of the People's Communications, having discussed the current moment, arrived at the following conclusion: we entered the party with the goal of working for the good of the people, and stand entirely in defense of the interests of the worker and peasant masses. Therefore, at the present difficult time being suffered by the Republic, when all our strivings must be turned to the battle with destruction, cold and hunger, we unanimously declare that we do not stand for the authorities, but entirely for the rightful cause of the laborers. Therefore we, as honest workers, standing in defense of the interests and rights of the laborers, unanimously declare that we are under the command of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which has placed before itself the goal of forming Soviets of the purely laboring proletarian masses.
Long live Sovet power, true defender of the laborers!
town of Kronstadt, March 8th, 1921
PETROV, President of the Meeting
II
We, workers' representatives, at the General Meeting of the 6th Raikom of the Union of Metal Workers, having heard the truthful speech of a deputy from the Prov. Rev. Com. of the Fortress of Kronstadt, say, "We believe in you, we are with you. Go boldly forward on the shining path which you have marked. We will not leave you, and if necessary, we will die together with you for the good of our brothers the laborers."
ROMASHEV, President
(signature), Secretary
ELECTIONS TO THE REVTROIKA AT THE WORKER-PEASANT INSPECTION
At the General Meeting of the workers of the Worker-Peasant Inspection, it was decided that since there are 4 subdepartments in Rabkrin [Worker-Peasant Inspection], just such a number of members should be elected, that is, 4 persons: Galkin, Morozov, Neveikin and Soloviev. Three of those elected, Comrades Galkin, Morozov and Neveikin, are to remain at the Rabkrin Department, and Comrade Soloviev is to be located at the Soviet of the People's Economy sub-department. Comrade Galkin was elected President of the Revtroika, and Neveikin Secretary.
AN APPEAL
Comrade Communists, come to your senses! Admit your unforgivable error before the non-party comrades. I too was a Communist, of the battleship Sevastopol's collective, and have now understood how we were deceived by our torture chamber bureaucrats. Comrade Communists, it is time to come to your senses! Enough of shooting our own fathers and executing brother peasants and workers by the order of some kind of Trotskies. We will throw away our deceiving slogan, "The dictatorship of the proletariat." We will join in a comradely family together with our Rev. Com., for the rightful cause.
Down with the oppressors' party!
Long live the worker and peasant!
KOSKIN, a Communist
LEAVING THE PARTY
Declarations of departure from the R.C.P. arrive unceasingly at the editorial offices, but in view of their great quantity and the insufficiency of space, the editors are unable to publish them immediately, and will include them as possible in following editions of the newspaper.
In view of the fact that in answer to the the comrade Kronstadters' proposal for delegates to be sent from Petrograd, Trotsky and the Communist leaders began to spill blood by firing the first rounds, I ask that from today I no longer be considered a member of the R.C.P. The speeches of Communist orators fogged my head, but today's practices of the bureaucrat-Communists have cleared it.
I ask that this declaration be printed in the press, and also ask the crew to accept me into its close family, that I may share in its sorrows and joys.
I bless the bureaucrat-Communists for the fact that they have uncovered their face, and in that way brought me out of delusion. I was a blind tool in their hands.
Former R.C.P. member No 537,575
ANDREI BRATASHEV
Recognizing the critical situation which has been created by the actions of a shameless little bunch of Communists, who have woven themselves a thick nest at the top of the Communist party, and having entered the Communist party under pressure, as a rank and file working man, I look with horror on the fruits of their hands' work. The country, brought to ruin, can be rebuilt only by the worker and peasant, whom the Communist party, as ruler, has plucked to the last feather. Therefore I am leaving the party, and will give my knowledge for the defense of the laboring mass.
L. KOROLEV, Commander of the 5th Battalion, 4th Division
The bloody horror of Nikolai
We had not been able yet to forget,
When the commune's "holy" party
Began to spill our blood anew.
She promised us liberty,
She promised us the gift of fortune,
But this her own gift she changed
To bloody terror and nightmare.
Executions, torments, tortures,
Blood poured from under swords.
She gave us three years of suffering
Worse than the Tsar's butchers.
It has come true... By the Will of the people
The nightmare of oppression is broken,
Liberty has been returned
The mighty fire of uprising burns.
Grey Kronstadt, in past days
Moved ahead as a revolutionary.
It threw down Nikolai's weight
And will throw down the Communist yoke.
Seaman K. KOLODOCHKIN
Krovavyi uzhas Nikolaya
My nye uspyeli pozabyt',
Kommuny partiya "svyataya"
Krov' nashu snova stala lit'.
Ona svobodu nam sulila,
Nam obyeshchala schast'ya dar,
No etot dar svoii pryevratila
V krovavyii uzhas i koshmar.
Rasstryel', pytki, istyazan'ya,
Lilasya krov' iz pod myechyei.
Dala tri goda nam stradan'ya
No khuzhye tsarskikh palachyei.
Svyershilos'... Volyeyu naroda
Koshmar nasiliya razbit,
Vozvrashthyena opyat' svoboda
Pozhar vosstaniya gorit.
Syedoii Kronshtadt, v byloye vryemya
Ryevolyutsionnym shyel vpyeryed.
On Nikolaya sbrosil bryemya
I sbrosit kommunistov gnyet.
Moryak K. KOLODOCHKIN
We, Communists of the battleship Sevastopol, having discussed the current moment, arrived at the following conclusion: during the last three years of our party's existence, many self-seekers and careerists have poured into our ranks. Because of the above, these careerists have created a powerful bureaucratism in the country, and thereby have raised the workers and peasants against the party.
Our party has always placed as its purpose the struggle against all enemies of the proletariat and laboring class, and we now openly declare that we, as honest sons of the workers and peasants, will stand also in the future for the laborers' victories. We will not allow a single White Guard, either secret or open, to use the temporary, difficult situation of our Soviet Republic, and at the first attempt to raise a hand against Soviet power, we will know how the give the necessary repulse to the counterrevolutionary hydra of the Entente.
We have already declared and declare once again that we are under the command of the Kronstadt Provisional-Revolutionary Committee, which has given itself the goal of forming Soviets of the laboring and proletarian class.
Long live Soviet power, true defender of the rights of laborers!
We ask that this resolution be widely advertised in the press.
I. Petrov, Turk, G. Babanov, E. Soloviev, F. Bobor, Tikhomirov, A. Agafonov, Dialensky, G. Moshuanov, Kornoniushkin, Iu. Kentok, Kolomychenko, Chernov, I. Naumov, V. Ianishus, I. Semenov, N. Kitto, V. Lubkov, O. Svetlov, V. Tuzov, A. Etikson, S. Fetrovin, Fedorov, Busybin, Gant, Gavrilov
Declarations of departure from the R.C.P. also arrived from the following: 1) N. Ermolenko, seaman of the battleship Petropavlovsk, 2) P. Tolbaev, candidate member of the R.C.P., 3) Zhukovsky, seaman of the battleship Petropavlovsk, 8th Company, 4) I. Mischenkov, worker in the Port Galvanoplastics Workshop, 5) M. Petrov, member of the R.C.P., 6) G. Ivanov, soldier of battery No 5, 7) A. Buivolov, soldier of 3rd Division, 8) also A. Krutikov, 9) also T. Timoshin, 10) also P. Moiseev, 11) also V. Sapogov, 12) also B. Dziubinsky, 13) also A. Sokovtsev, 14) also I. Grishin, 15) also G. Semenov, 16) also E. Perezhogin, 17) G. Rebon, seaman of the Company of Seamen Specialists, 18) D. Chizhov, seaman of the Academic Mining Detachment, 19) A. Tuzov, artisan of fort Petr I, 20) G. Zharov, member of the R.C.P., 21) I. Manziar, artisan of the Mine Laboratory, 22) I. Petrov, worker of the Support Crew of 3rd Division, 23) S. Savin, seaman of the Academic Mining Detachment, 24) G. Kurakin, clerk of the Support Crew of the 3rd Artillery Division.
PRODUCE
From Gorprodkom
Today a quarter pound of biscuit is issued by adult cards of letter A, for bread coupon No 24, counted against the bread norm for March 9th.
2 pounds of wheat is issued from stores No 5 and 14 by children's cards of series A, for produce coupon No 6, counted against the bread norm for March 8th through 11th.
One pound of fresh meat by adult cards of letters A and B and children's of series C for bread coupon No 25, and by children's cards of series B for bread coupon No 6, counted against the bread norm for March 8th through 11th.
1/16 lb. of yeast is issued by Rudkevich the yeast maker (corner of Lenin Blvd. and Saidashnaia) for bread coupon No 4 by children's cards of series C, for payment.
It is announced for the information of Uchkoms and building representatives, that citizens on naval rations must not be provided with goods.
LEVAKOV, member of the Revtroika, for the President of Gorprodkom
POZDNIAKOV, Head of the Subdepartment of Distribution
NUMBER 8
Thursday, March 10th, 1921
A BOMB THROWN AT KRONSTADT IS A SIGNAL FOR UPRISING IN THE COMMUNIST CAMP
ORDER
OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
No 5
March 9th, 1921
In connection with the military situation, the populace of the town is directed to hang all windows with something thick at night, before striking the light.
KILGAST, for the President of the Prov. Rev. Com.
TUKIN, for the Secretary
ORDER
OF THE COMMANDANT OF THE TOWN OF KRONSTADT
No 69
March 10th, 1921
I order all Communists resident in the town of Kronstadt to surrender to the Administration of the Commandant of the Town (Roshal Square) within two days from the publication of this order all weaponry in their possession, that is: revolvers, rifles, their ammunition, and also sabres, dirks and accumulator (electrical) lamps.
Those not carrying out this order will be considered to be acting against the authority of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and if weaponry is discovered in their possession, they will be liable to severe consequences.
ZEMSKOV, Provisional and Acting Commandant of the Town of Kronstadt
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
(March 9th, 1921)
Attempts by the adversary to attack from the North and South were repulsed, with large losses for the attackers.
There were no losses on our side.
CALM AND RESTRAINT
We didn't want blood. They started it, and the battle is on.
The sailors, soldiers and workers of Kronstadt, true to the laboring Revolution, are forging fortune for Soviet Russia. The chains of the three year Communist slavery are being broken with an iron hammer.
The Communist throne has begun to tremble, and in a blind rage they choke themselves in the blood of laborers. They shoot workers and peasants right and left. They jeer over and repress the rebels' defenseless families.
One more blow and the bloodthirsty Molloch, which has lulled the laboring people to sleep with sweet speeches, will be thrown down in ruins.
May the fraternal blood which waters the face of tormented Soviet Russia, wrung from the workers and peasants by the criminal Communists, be like cement; may it bind those who fight the hated yoke of the traitors into a unified host. At the moment of decisive combat with the hydra of the Bolshevik autocracy we must be composed.
Our call to battle has already been heard.
Reserves are already approaching. Before the Bolsheviks' eyes, our brothers the workers and peasants are extending us a helping hand in our battle with the maddened horde.
We must destroy the commissarocracy. With flaming hate in our heart and a sober head, holding back those who burst for battle and thereby preserving our living forces, we will strike the final blow decisive blow to the enemy.
We will carry to success the titanic battle with those who have betrayed the laboring people.
Calm and restraint.
FROM THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee, not following the Communist example, left both them and their families at liberty. At the present time it has been established that in an attempt at provocation, wanting to sow panic among the populace, they have spread the most foolish rumors. They talk of Krasnaya Gorka surrendering, of Trotsky promising not to leave one stone of Kronstadt on another, and so on. All this makes the civilian populace worry needlessly.
If there are several reports that the Prov. Rev. Com. is not now making public, it is demanded by the military situation, since there are still not a few spy-Communists among the populace. Citizens! Everything possible is made public in Izvestiia. Do not believe whisperers' rumors. Try to restrain the culprits and hand them over to the Prov. Rev. Com.
The Prov. Rev. Com. warns that decisive measures, dictated by the circumstances of the military period, will be taken against those sowing lying rumors.
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
A BROADCAST TO THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD
The following broadcast was sent on March 8th:
To all... to all... to all...
Comrades, workers of the world! The Communists have declared our uprising for true Soviet power a mutiny. But it is not we who are the mutineers, but they.
The laboring masses have demanded free new elections to the stacked Soviets. But the Bolshevik authorities, with bloody Fieldmarshal Trostky at the head, have decided to repress the will of the laboring people whatever may come of it. They defend the party autocracy with executions of toilers and with violence against their families.
The Communists slander us, saying that our leaders are White Guard generals. They say that we have sold out to Finland, and that it has promised us support.
Before the world proletariat we swear that no kind of White Guard generals lead us, and that no kind of negotiations with Finland either about military or produce support have there been, and none can there be. We are supplied with military equipment and produce for the time necessary to overthrow the Communists.
If, however, our struggle were to be drawn out, it is possible that we would be forced to turn to external produce aid, for the good of our wounded heroes, children and the civilian populace.
The Communists mask their weakness with claims that they are giving us a period of grace. In actual fact, they cannot collect the forces necessary to strangle the Third Revolution of laborers.
It has been three days since they fired the first shot, and first spilled fraternal blood. Fighting for the rightful cause, we have accepted the challenge. The garrison and laboring populace of Kronstadt, having thrown off the shameful Communist yoke, have decided to fight to the end.
With comradely greetings,
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF KRONSTADT
VOICE OF THE DECEIVED
For three and a half years a little bunch of usurpers have made a reality of their own thieving will. At last, the Kronstadt sons of laboring Russia, horrified by the Communist oppression, came on March 1st to decide the fate of the deceived and robbed Russian people. With a single voice, we of Kronstadt said to the Communist leaders, Kalinin and the rest, "enough of oppression, and enough of deception. Off the road! Let us breathe free and share our painful needs with all the workers, peasants, sailors and soldiers of the boundless Russian land."
They, traitors, are frightened of the deceived Russian laboring people coming to understand everything.
In 3 1/2 years of their reign they have still not drunk their fill of the innocent blood of toilers.
The executions of our brothers are still too few for them. They have taken to torturing defenseless women and children. And where are our representatives? Why can they not intercede for us, and liberate our brothers who are languishing in prisons?
No, deceivers, we have heard enough of your fancy speech. No one believes you any more. Don't try to scare us either. No one fears you.
The laboring people itself, and not generals, is leading the struggle against you, you blood-drinkers.
Long live the Russian proletariat, tortured, long-suffering all adversities, and now in rebellion to gain its rights!
Long live the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Town of Kronstadt, chosen by us, the laborers! Only it do we trust.
Off, hands stained with brotherly blood, stinking oppressors of Laboring Russia!
THE REVTROIKA OF THE ENGINEER WORKING BATTALION
TO SOLDIERS FIGHTING ON THE COMMUNIST SIDE
Comrades! March 7th, by order of Trotsky, butcher of worker-peasant Russia, fire was opened on Free Kronstadt from the batteries of Lisy Nos and Sestroretsk because Kronstadt no longer wants to dance to the piping of the Communist party, which has betrayed the laboring worker and peasant folk in order to gain power.
We did not want to spill fraternal blood, and we did not fire a single shot until they forced us to do so. We were forced to defend the rightful cause of the laboring people, and to fire. We were forced to fire at our own brothers, sent to a certain death by Communists, who feast on the people's bill.
And at that time their ringleaders, Trotsky, Zinoviev and the rest, were sitting on soft chairs in the warm, lit rooms of tsarist palaces, discussing how the quicker and better to cover rebel Kronstadt in blood. To your misfortune, a snowstorm arose and an impenetrable night approached. None the less, taking nothing into consideration, the Communist butchers pushed you across the ice. They drove you from behind with detachments of machine gun armed Communists.
Many of you perished that night, on the huge, icy expanse of the Gulf of Finland. At sunrise, when the snowstorm had quieted, only pathetic remnants reached us, hungry and exhausted, barely moving your feet, dressed in white shrouds.
By early morning, nearly a thousand of you had been gathered, and by afternoon a countless number. You paid dearly with your blood and suffering for this venture. And after your failure, Trotsky rolled off back to Petrograd, to once again drive new sufferers to the slaughter. Our worker-peasant blood is obtained for him cheaply enough.
And once again the regiments will set out, driven by well dressed and well fed Communists who hide behind your backs, farther from our rounds, in order to treat you to machine gun fire if you waver or if you don't want to give your body for the defense of these brigands. We don't treat the Communists like that. All the commissars, and even the butchers from the Cheka, we feed with the exact same rations which we eat ourselves.
We refused butter to Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot, when he declared that it's impossible to live without it; we give butter only to children and the sick. That is how matters stand in Kronstadt, and not like the Communist deceivers tell you: that White officers and Finnish White Guards have captured Kronstadt. No, Kronstadt is controlled only by seamen, soldiers and workers, who have given an oath to liberate you and all Russia from the power of those who have betrayed the laboring people.
Comrades, realize what you are doing and where you are going!
Look and see what awaits you, and what you are spilling your blood for!
The Communist administration has led Russia to unheard of destitution, hunger, cold and other disasters. Factories and plants have closed, and railroads are almost at a stop. The countryside has been stripped to the bone. There is neither bread, nor beast, nor tool to work the land.
There is no clothing, no shoes, no heat. Every day, hungry and cold workers, peasants and city folk move toward a certain death, having lost all hope for improvement in their lives.
And the traitorous Communist party brought you to this. For three and a half years they sang into your ears that there, there everything will be arranged and it will be good, but in fact they have pulled the wool over your eyes in the most base way, flayed the last bit from you and now are sending you to the slaughter. The Communists don't need you, but only power over you so that they can continue to oppress the people for their own pleasure.
So enough of bearing the oppressors and their power on our own necks. Rise up, all as one, and with the comradely blow of a bayonet, throw the base traitors into the grave. Join us, so that shoulder to shoulder we may attack the common enemy, for the liberation of Soviet Russia and of our brothers the peasants and workers from the pack of robbers with the blood-drinkers Trotsky and Zinoviev at its head.
To arms comrades!
As comrades, forward against the enemy!
Victory is ours!
THEY SHARE WITH BROTHERS
The struggle for Soviet power ties us ever closer together. Every person strives to somehow aid the common cause. The 1st Raikom of metalworkers has unanimously decided to hand over to the common kettle the entire horsemeat ration due them.
ELECTIONS TO THE REVTROIKA AND RAIKOM
The General Meeting of the 6th Regional Committee of the Union of Metalworkers of the Kronstadt Port Construction Unit, after reports on the events of the day by Comrades Kilgast and Perepelkin, passed the following resolution, "We trust you, we are with you. Go boldly forward on the holy path you have marked. We will not leave you, and if necessary, will die together with you for the good of our brothers, the laborers and workers."
Comrade Kostenko was elected as Raikom representative to the Troika. Comrade Boiarinov was elected President of the Regional Committee, Comrade Parychev Secretary and Comrade Kupriianov a member.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
I ask to correct a mistake which I noticed in yesterday's March 9th number of Kronshtadtskie Izvestiia, where it reports on my leaving the R.C.P. I was never in the party, and hate the supporters of the party of those who have deceived us with their lying slogans, under the mask of the laboring people.
Down with the Communist blood-drinkers!
Long live the Power of Laborers!
G. REBONE, seaman of the Company of Seaman-Specialists
THE COMMUNIST THRONE HAS BEGUN TO TREMBLE
LEAVING THE PARTY
All those leaving the ranks of the R.C.P. are directed to turn in their party booklets and identifications at their electoral troikas. Those leaving the party in the future and giving declarations are directed to do so right now.
Declarations of departure from the R.C.P. arrive unceasingly at the editorial offices, but in view of their great quantity and the insufficiency of space, the editors are unable to publish them immediately, and will include them as possible in following editions of the newspaper.
MY COMRADE STUDENTS OF THE LABOR, MILITARY AND NAVAL SCHOOLS!
I have lived for almost thirty years with a deep love for the people. I have carried light and knowledge, as well as I was able, wherever it was awaited, and wherever needed for the present moment. The Revolution of 1917 increased my strengths by giving my work free range, and I continued to serve my ideal with great energy. The teachings of Communism, with its slogan, "All for the people," captured me with their purity and beauty. Thus, in February of 1920, I became a candidate member of the R.C.P. But with the "first shot" I was shaken by the thought that I might be considered a participant in spilling the blood of innocent victims. They have fired at a peaceful populace, at my deeply beloved children, of whom there are 6 or 7 thousand in Kronstadt. I came to feel that it is not within my strength to hold faith in, and profess to a party which has disgraced itself by a bestial act. Therefore, with this first shot I ceased to consider myself a candidate member of the R.C.P."
MARIIA NIKOLAEVNA SHATEL, teacher
March 8th, 1921
I request that you no longer consider me a member of the R.C.P., since I have become convinced that the Communists are oppressors. Like bloodthirsty animals they do not feel sorry for their kills, and hunger for the people's blood. I greet the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which is leading the laboring people by a true and honest path.
SHISHELOVA, manual laborer of the Artillery Workshop
We, rank and file Communists of the Electrical Unit of the Third Region have seen that when the comrade Kronstadters proposed that delegates be sent from Petrograd, Trotsky sent an airplane filled with bombs. The Communists started throwing bombs out on women and children who are in no way guilty, and barely missed taking a boy of 13 years as their victim. Because of this, and because executions of honest workers are raging everywhere, we are constantly tortured by the actions and bestial works of Trotsky and his champions, and are leaving the Communist party in order to join all honest workers in the mutual struggle for liberation of the laborers from oppression. We ask that we be considered non-party comrades.
Anton Kovtun, Andrei Luts, Iuna, Starovevki, Otu, Smark, Eduard Pokrov, Stepan Galiantcheev, Georgii Egorov, Andrei Filippov, Ivan Nikolaev, Ivan Filippov, Nikolai Baksheev, Aleksei Bostalev, Filimonov, Petr Pavlov and one illegible signature
Declarations also arrived from:
25) F. Andreev, machinist of fort Konstantin, 26) M. Logunov, sldr. of the 4th Artillery Division, 27) also A. Sergeev, 28) V. Kondrashikhin, sldr. of the Fortress Communications Service, 29) L. Savkovsky, seaman of the Academic Mining Detachment, 30) also S. Yakovlev, 31) also V. Shutov, 32) also P. Semeniuk, 33) also P. Kanatov, 34) also S. Ageev, 35) also F. Zhuravsky, 36) also Lebedev, 37) also Lavrov, 38) also V. Golber, 39) also I. Karavaev, 40) also A. Malashenkov, 42) S. Artamonov, seaman of the Kronstadt Naval Prodbaza, 43) F. Shlakis, artisan of the Naval Artillery Laboratory, 44) M. Glukhov, seaman of the Worker-Escort Detachment.
75) A. Suslov, sailor of the steamship Izhor, 76) P. Ivanov, seaman of the Port Tugboats, 77) S. Artemov, sldr. of 5th Company of the infantry regiment, 78) I. Ilyin, artisan of the Naval Artillery Laboratory, 79) V. Shirmov, sldr. of the 13th Battery, 80) V. Prokopov, seaman, 81) P. Zimin, seaman of the Academic Mining Detachment, 82) A. Tarasov, sldr. of Battery No 4, 83) I. Morkin, sldr. of the 9th Battery of fort Totleben, of the 4th Artillery Division, 84) also Ia. Malevansky, 85) also V. Smirnov, 86) also V. Afanasiev, 87) also F. Litvinov, 88) also K. Deviatkin, 89) also P. Kuzmin, 90) also N. Loginov, 91) also A. Semionov, 92) also Shuagenkov, 93) V. Nekipelov, artisan of the Ust-Kanal Substation, 94) D. Spiridonov, seaman of the Academic Mining Detachment, 95) also V. Stepanov, 96) also A. Gorodinsky, 97) also V. Burmatov, 98) also N. Kulikov, 99) also I. Petushkovsky, 100) also B. Maksimovsky, 101) also M. Chernyshev, 102) also P. Zimin, 103) also N. Steniaev, 104) also G. Vikhorev, 105) also D. Moshensky, 106) also A. Saveliev, 107) also V. Spiridonov, 108) G. Zaitsev, member of the R.C.P., 109) P. Kolosov, artisan of the Steamship Plant, 110) V. Spiridonov, sldr. of the Second Artillery Division, 111) D. Sedlov, sldr. of the 7th Artillery Division, 112) I. Melnikov, seaman of the Mine Casting Workshop, 113) I. Vorobiov, cashier of the Town Finance Department, 114) N. Kuriashev, baker of the Army Bakery, 115) also T. Platonov, 116) M. Sysoev, militiaman, 117) also Breiner, 118) also I. Dmitriev, 119) M. Fomin, sldr. of the 3rd Artillery Division, 120) S. Rois, sldr. of the 4th Anti-Aircraft Battery of the Fortress Air Defense, 121) K. Borovikov, sldr., 122) A. Rusakov, seaman, 123) P. Kulikov, member of the R.C.P., 124) M. Trofinov, lithographer of the Administration of the Artillery Commander, 125) A. Maiorov, seaman, 126) V. Kappo, artisan of the Steamship Plant, 127) also A. Selivanov, 128) G. Iosifov, 129) Ia. Tiulin, candidate member of the R.C.P., 130) A. Vasiliev, sldr. 131) I. Chekulaev, artisan of fort Petr I.
Comrades, I ask that you accept me into your family, since I too am a peasant and village toiler. My family, like yours, was destroyed by the back-breaking and oppressive yoke of the R.C.P. Comrades, seeing all this filth, seeing that the R.C.P. has become bureaucratized and that all its declarations and decisions have stayed on paper and not been brought to life, I leave its ranks and give my support to the resolution which was passed at the General Town Meeting of March 1st, and for which I too voted.
Once more comrades, I ask you to accept me into your ranks and to use my work.
IUSHKOV, serviceman of the 3rd Division
We the undersigned, members of the R.C.P., declare that, finding the party's tactics to be fundamentally incorrect, and that it is completely bureaucratized and absolutely separated from the masses, we are leaving its ranks. Before all the laboring people, we brand those who remain in its ranks with the shame of criminals and murderers.
We the undersigned call on all honest members of the R.C.P. to give full support to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee as the single organ which expresses the will of the laboring people at the present time.
Follow us to honorable battle against the insane fanatics, and tell yourself, "Victory or death for the glory of the laborers."
M. Arkhipov, V. Trapezniakov, A. Rekhov, Shitov, Ia. Filippov, Ustinov, Alekseev, Rumiantsev, P. Filippov, I. Ovchinnikov, A. Kniaginin, K. Ilyin and I. Balashev, soldiers of the Air Defense of the Kronstadt Naval Fortress
Seeing clearly that the R.C.P. not only is not in agreement with the will of the entire laboring people, but that it is attempting to hold power for itself by all means in its command, up to and including threats and false reports from the center of power, I declare to the Revolutionary Committee that I consider myself to have left the ranks of the R.C.P. I will exert all my reason, strength and two years of battle experience in the last war for the good of the entire laboring people. I give my entire support to the resolution of the garrison of the town of Kronstadt.
I. SHAFRIN, seaman.
PRODUCE
FROM GORPRODKOM
Today, 1/4 lb. of salted butter is issued from the meat stores by adult cards of letters A and B, for produce coupon No 4.
1/4 lb. of table butter is issued to children of all series: by series A for produce coupon No 7, by series B for produce coupon No 5, and by series C for produce coupon No 4.
1/2 lb. of sugar is issued from all stores by all adult and children's cards. To adults of letters A and B and to children of series C for bread coupon No 7, to children of series A for produce coupon No 8 and of series B for bread coupon No 7.
The Presidium of Gorprodkom directs Uchkoms and house representatives, on their personal responsibility, to take cards from those under arrest, since the latter receive produce at their place of imprisonment, and to present these to the Statistics sub-department no later than March 11th.
All orders and writs issued by Gorkommuna before March 7th are declared annulled.
Issues of produce declared by Gorkommuna until March 6th inclusive are considered ended, and unused coupons in citizens' possesion are annulled.
From March 9th the following are the following norms are established for the foddering of horses in the possession of Soviet institutions: 12 lbs. of oats in 24 hours and 4 lbs of hay in 24 hours. The Administration of Gorprodkom directs that these norms be followed.
AL. OKOLOTKOV, for the president of Gorprodkom
NUMBER 9
Friday, March 11th, 1921
ALL POWER TO SOVIETS, AND NOT PARTIES
NOTICE
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee reports that today at 4 P.M., in the Garrison Club, there will be a meeting of the representatives elected on March 2nd, for the organization of new elections to the Soviets.
FROM THE COMMANDANT OF THE TOWN OF KRONSTADT
It is announced for your information that only those documents, giving the right of passage about the town after 11 P.M., are valid which have the seal of the battleship Petropavlovsk, "Commander of the Town of Kronstadt," or "Staff of the Kronstadt Naval Fortress." All other documents issued by whatever kind of unit or institution are considered invalid without the presence of the seals declared above.
ZEMSKOV, Commandant of the Town of Kronstadt
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
Over the entire course of the night of March 10th, the Communist artillery bombarded the fortress and forts with intensive artillery fire from the southern and northern shores, meeting an energetic repulse from our side. About 4 A.M., Communist infantry made the first attack attempt, from the southern shore, but was repulsed. Communist attempts to attack continued until 8 A.M., but all were repulsed by the artillery and small arms fire of our battaries and garrison units.
THE CONFUSION OF AUTHORITY
Kronstadt began a struggle with the Communist usurpers of power, who have taken for themselves the right to punish and pardon the peasants and workers, like grand lords. We have thrown out a call to all the laborers of Russia to struggle for freely elected Soviets. Our cry has been heard. The revolutionary sailors, soldiers and workers of Petrograd are already coming to our aid.
We have learned from deserters that in Petrograd Fieldmarshal Trotsky is already unable to raise a single combat detachment. He is forced to make do with gangs of chekists, murderers from the anti-profiteer detachments and other scum.
We also learn that for the Communist staff, simple Communists are already not enough for the attack on Kronstadt. They are calling for select berserkers.
The Bolshevik authorities feel the ground slipping from under their feet, and give the order in Petrograd to shoot any group of 5 people gathered in the street. The authorities are scared. They are beginning to act nervously, making mistake after mistake, and finally coming to the point where they shoot cannons at sparrows.
The people of Petrograd are putting on pressure from the rear. One more blow and the oppressors' power will fall.
HOW THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE WAS FORMED
On the first of March at two o'clock, by permission of the Ispolkom and not arbitrarily, a meeting of seamen, soldiers and workers gathered on Revolution Square. As many as 15 thousand people were present at the meeting. It occured under the presidency of Comrade Vasiliev, a Communist and President of the Ispolkom, and with the participation of Comrade Kalinin, President of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot, who had arrived from Petrograd.
The object of the meeting was to discuss a resolution passed previously at the General Meeting of the ships' crews of the 1st and 2nd Brigades. This resolution was on the current moment, and the question of how to lead the country out of the difficult state of general collapse and ruin. This resolution is now well known to all, and does not include anything that would hurt Soviet power.
In fact it was the expression of true Soviet power, of the power of workers and peasants. But Comrades Kalinin and Kuzmin, who gave speeches, did not want to understand this. Their speeches were not successful. They did not know how to speak to the masses, who were tortured to despair. And so, the meeting unanimously passed the resolution of the ships' crews.
The next day, by the permission and authority of the Ispolkom, in accordance with a decree published in Izvestiia, delegates from ships, military units, workshops and trade unions, two per organization, gathered at the House of Education (formerly the Engineering Academy). In all, more than three hundred people were gathered.
The representatives of authority had lost their heads, and several of them left town. Because of this it is completely understandable that the protection of both the delegates and the building itself from excesses from anyone's side had to be taken on by the crew of the battleship Petropavlovsk.
The Conference of Delegates was opened by Comrade Petrichenko. After the selection of a 5 person Presidium, he gave the floor to Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot. Despite the sharp definition of the garrison's and workers' attitude toward the representatives of power and the Communists, Comrade Kuzmin did not want to take it into consideration. The object of the Conference was to find an exit, to settle by peaceful means the situation which had formed. Specifically, the object was to create an organ, with the aid of which it would be possible to cary out new elections to the Soviets on a more fair basis, as outlined by the resolution.
And this was all the more necessary since the authority of the old Soviet, which was almost entirely filled with Communists, and had shown itself incapable of carrying out vitally urgent tasks, had in effect already ended. But instead of trying to calm the Conference, Comrade Kuzmin stirred it up. He spoke of the dual situation which Kronstadt occupied, of patrols, dual power, danger from Poland, of the fact that all Europe is watching us. He assured us that all was calm in Petrograd, pointed out that he was in the delegates' hands, and that if they wished they could shoot him, and concluded his speech with the declaration that if the delegates wanted open armed struggle, then it would happen; the Communists would not leave power voluntarily, and would struggle to their last forces.
After Kuzmin's speech, tactless and not bringing a single drop of calm to the agitated mass of delegates but just inciting it more, was a colorless speech by Comrade Vasiliev, President of the Ispolkom. This speech had a very undefined composition, and lacked purpose. The overwhelming majority of the Conference was clearly opposed to the Communists.
But none the less, the Conference did not lose the certainty that it was possible to reach agreement with the representatives of authority. This is supported best of all by the fact that the Conference President's call to enter into substantive work and make an agenda found unanimous support among the delegates.
It was decided to begin working out an agenda, but at the same time it became clear to everyone that it was impossible to trust Comrades Kuzmin and Vasiliev. It was necessary to temporarily restrain them, since the order to take the Communists' weapons away had not yet been issued, it was not advisable to use the telephones, and the soldiers, as was later shown by a letter divulged at the Conference, were afraid that the commissars would not allow meetings in the units and such.
Although the Conference did not hide its negative attitude toward the Communists, all the same when the question was raised after Comrades Kuzmin and Vasiliev and the Fortress Commander had been removed, it was decided to allow the Communists among the delegates to remain in the Conference, and to continue in the general work along with the non-party comrades. The Conference, despite the individual protests of several members who proposed restraining the Communists, found it possible to recognize them as the very same empowered representatives of units and organizations as the other members.
This too supports the fact that the non-party delegates of the laborers, soldiers, sailors and workers believed that the resolution which had been passed the previous day at the Garrison Meeting would not lead to a break with the Communists, like it had with their party. They believed that a common language could be found, and that they could understand one another.
After this, at the suggestion of Comrade Petrichenko, the resolution which had been passed the previous day at the Garrison Meeting was read, and also passed by the Conference with an overwhelming majority of votes.
And then, at that moment when it seemed the Conference would be able to enter into substantive work, there came the out of order declaration of a comrade delegate from the battleship Sevastopol saying that 15 carts of rifles and machine guns were moving toward the building.
This report, completely unexpected by the Conference, was later shown to be false, and was put out by the Communists in the hope of breaking up the Conference. But at the moment when it was made, the tense atmosphere, the clearly ill-disposed attitude of the representatives of authority, and the entire situation had well prepared the Conference to believe that it was actually so.
Never the less, the Conference supported the President's proposal to enter into discussion of the current moment on the basis of the resolution which had been passed. The Conference began discussing measures which would serve to actually carry out the resolution. A proposal to send a delegation to Petrograd was laid aside, in view of the possibility of its arrest. After this, proposals arrived from a large number of comrade delegates, suggesting that a Provisional Revolutionary Committee be formed from the Conference Presidium, and that it be appointed to attend to carrying out new elections to the Soviet.
At the very last moment, the comrade President reported that a detachment of two-thousand persons was moving toward the Conference. After this, the Conference, unrestful and upset, broke up in alarm and left the building of the House of Education.
With the closing of the Conference, and in connection with the report which had just been made, the Provisional Revolutionary Committee set off for the battleship Petropavlovsk with the object of finding protection. It had its residence there until the Committee's efforts had ensured order in the town in the interests of all laborers, seamen, soldiers and workers.
THE TRUTH ABOUT KRONSTADT
(Voice of a Communist)
The spontaneous striving of the broad laboring masses to make a reality of the bright ideals of the October revolution and of Soviet power has called forth an amazing rise in the spirits of those involved in the current revolutionary movement. From those few reports which make it through to Kronstadt it is possible to think that several of the Petrograd Communist comrades, maybe because they don't know the situation in Kronstadt, or maybe deliberately, are drawing the Kronstadt events in a completely different light.
To me personally, as a Communist, it is painful to hear my own party members repeat this slander, this fantasy, which the Petrograd papers write.
They are saying there that everything happening in Kronstadt is the work of White Guards and Entente spies with General Kozlovsky as head, and that Kronstadt has made an agreement with Finland and is ready to make war on Peter.
The movement which began in the Peter factories was unquestionably called out by lack of faith in the subverted Soviets, by the closing of factories and plants due to lack of heating material and the produce difficulties, and by the worker arrests connected with the movement. At that time, however, it was unnoticed in Kronstadt, which is better provided with heating material and produce, although there were rumors passed about what was happening in Petrograd.
These rumors took root on the Petropavlovsk. Her crew took up the demand to end arrests and release those already arrested, and added other demands.
Because of this, on March 1st, at the Garrison Meeting at Anchor Square, in the presence of Comrade Kalinin, President of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, Comrade Kuzmin, Commissar of Baltflot, and almost the entire populace and garrison of the fortress, a resolution which had been worked out earlier was proposed, and passed unanimously (with the exception of Comrades Kalinin, Kuzmin and Vasiliev) without any kind of change at all.
The most fundamental and important point of this resolution was the demand for new elections to the Soviets, so that representatives from all left political parties, and anarchists also, could take part in them. This would have been done so that the Soviets would represent the actual power of the laborers themselves.
As for the other points of the resolution, like removing the anti-profiteer detachments, liberating political prisoners and so on, some of these demands have already been fulfilled under pressure from the masses. For example, there is an order by the Petrosoviet on removing the anti-profiteer detachments from all of Petrograd Province.
Based on this resolution, which had been affirmed by the entire populace and garrison of the fortress, the sailors of the Petropavlovsk proposed to the Presidium of the Soviet that it should be newly elected in the next couple of days. The next day, March 2nd that is, in accordance with an announcement by the Presidium of the Soviet, two delegates were chosen from each union and raikom, who were supposed to elect from among themselves a commission to hold new elections to the Soviet.
But in view of the fact that fully believable suspicions appeared among the gathered delegates, about a supposed threat of oppression by the Communists, and also in view of the threatening speeches by several delegates on the Communists' behalf, the Conference decided to elect a Provisional Revolutionary Committee, and to also appoint it to organize the elections to the Soviet and the protection of the town.
From all this, we see that there was no kind of White Guard organization in this case, and that there couldn't be any, because everything that happened unfolded on grounds of the dissatisfaction of the broad masses with the existing Soviets, the majority of the representatives in which are Communists.
And once this is so, once we see that they no longer trust us, we have to say right away, not losing a day, "Citizens! Take state control in your own hands, but give us the right to take part in this work also, on the same basis as others." We have to do this in order to not earn still greater hatred from the people's masses, whose representatives we called ourselves.
All the repressions, executions and destruction which are brought by the war which the Communists have set up lead only to anger.
I am certain that comrade Communists who entered the party not because of a desire for power, careerism or any other self interest will agree with me.
PALANOV, candidate member of the R.C.P.
TO COMRADE WORKERS AND PEASANTS!
Kronstadt has started a heroic struggle with the hated Bolshevik authorities for the liberation of the workers and peasants. But it was not Kronstadt who first spilled comradely blood.
Our enemies are deceiving you. They say that the Kronstadt uprising was organized by Mensheviks, SR's, spies of the Entente and tsarist generals. They assign the leading role to Paris! Idiocy! Our uprising was made in Paris like the moon was made in Berlin. It is all a blatant lie.
That which is now happening was prepared by the Communists themselves, by their three year work of blood and destruction. Letters from the villages are full of complaints and damnations of the Communists. Our comrades have returned from leave full of hate and anguish, and informed us of the horrors which the Bolsheviks have created across the entire face of the Russian land. And finally, we ourselves felt, saw and heard what was being done all around. From every direction, a great and terrible scream came from the villages and town of unbounded Russia. It lit a fire of indignation in our hearts, and caused us to raise our hands against the Communists.
We don't want to return to the old way. We are not servants of the bourgeoisie or hirelings of the Entente. We are defenders of the power of all laborers, against the unbridled, tyrannical power of some single party.
In Kronstadt there is neither Kolchak, nor Denikin, nor Yudenich. In Kronstadt are laboring folk.
The reason and conscience of simple Kronstadt seamen, soldiers and workers has at last found the path and the words which will lead us out of the dead end, and which tsarist generals could not find.
The Communists have taken this well into account. Wanting to sow discord and to save their skins, they try to pin an image of White Guardism on our uprising. They will not succeed.
In the beginning, we wanted to settle everything by peaceful means, but the Communists didn't want to concede. They cling to power more than Nikolai, and are ready to drown all Russia in blood in order to keep their autocratic power.
And now bloodthirsty Trotsky, that evil genius of Russia, drives against us our children and your brothers, who cover the ice before the strongholds of Kronstadt with hundreds of corpses. For four days already the battle has seethed, the cannons have thundered and fraternal blood has poured. For four days the Kronstadt heroes have triumphantly repulsed all the enemy's onslaughts.
Kronstadt stands firm. One and all are prepared to sooner die than concede. Trotsky hovers like a kestrel over our heroic town, but he will not take it. His arms are too short. Our enemies act with only cadets, Communist fighting detachments and deceived troops, brought from far away and driven forward with machine guns.
The soldiers are agitated and cross over to us. Only the Communists remain. They are forced to select units from the butcher chekists, heroes of the anti-profiteer detachments and other such villains.
The people of Peter are already renouncing them, and soon the Judases will run off to hang themselves.
Comrade workers! Kronstadt is fighting for you, the hungry, cold and bare.
While the Bolsheviks rule, it will never be your lot to see anything better. For three years they have fed you on frozen potatoes, spoiled herring and promises, and life is getting worse and worse.
But you put up with it all.
So tell us, in the name of what? Can it really be just so that the Communists might flourish and the commissars get fat? Or do you still believe them?
At an expanded session of the Petrosoviet, Zinoviev reported on the millions in gold which are being issued to buy produce, and figured that for every worker 50 rubles will arrive. So, if an old lord-land owner would sell his serfs for a thousand ruble banknote, Zinoviev wants to buy the Peter workers for 50 rubles. That, comrades, is the kind of price which the Bolshevik market puts on you.
But we believe that our enemies will attract only unaware and backwards workers with that kind of dodge. No kind of gold will be enough for them to buy the honest and daring toilers.
Do not be slow!
Break the hated chains of the new serfdom.
Comrade peasants, the Bolsheviks deceived and fleeced you most of all. Where is the land which you took from the land owners, and of which you dreamed for hundreds of years? It has been given away to communards or put under Soviet collectives, and you watch and lick your lips. Everything has been taken from you that it was possible to take. You have been subjected to wholesale pillage. You have been worked to exhaustion by the Bolshevik serfdom. They force you to do the will of the new lords with a hungry stomach, a pinched mouth, barefoot and naked, and without a whisper.
Comrades, the people of Kronstadt have raised the banner of rebellion, and are certain that tens of millions of workers and peasants will answer their call.
It cannot be that the dawn which has appeared here has not become clear for all Russia. It cannot be that the Kronstadt explosion has not made all Russia, and first of all Petrograd, shake and arise.
Our enemies have filled the prisons with workers, but there are still many daring and honest ones at liberty.
Arise comrades, to battle with the Communist autocracy!
LATEST NEWS
--An order by the Defense Committee has been published in Petrograd forbidding street gatherings of more than five people under threat of being fired on.
--The mood in the city is one of depression.
--There are no complete garrison units. Rather, small detachments are formed from chekists, Communists and cadets.
--Garrison units are rebelling.
--A round fell on the Communist headquarters on the Oranienbaum shore, and destroyed a corner of the building.
--18 echelons have been hastily sent to the Polish border.
LIST OF THOSE KILLED, AND THOSE DIED FROM WOUNDS
FOR MARCH 8th, 9th, and 10th (UNTIL 12 NOON)
1) FROM KRONSTADT UNITS:
1) Aleksandrov, Mikhail, 2) Danilov, Aleksandr, 3) Klimenkov, Zakhar, 4) Mischenko, Stepan, 5) Pospelov, Aleksandr, 6) Pakhtonov, Ivan, 7) Kovshin, Stepan, 8) Shaposhnikov, Foma, and also 1 seaman, 1 worker and four soldiers whose names were not discovered.
2)FROM ATTACKING UNITS:
1) Cadets: Viasev, Semen, 2) Shamritsky, Ivan, 3 and 4) two cadets whose names were not made clear, and 5) Bachev, Aleksandr.
During the same period 2 seamen, 1 civilian and 31 soldiers were wounded.
HOW WE FEED THE COMMUNISTS
The following apportionment of produce has been confirmed for the arrested Communists and war prisoners, until the improvement of the produce situation in the fortress.
BREAD ALLOWANCE: 1/4 lb. of bread or 1/8 lb. of biscuit; 1/4 lb. of meat. HOT FOOD ALLOWANCE: 12 zol. [1 zolotnik is about 4.62 grams] of meat, 12 zol. of fish, 12 zol. of cabbage, 4 zol. of potato, 2 zol. of fats, 4 zol. of sugar, .72 zol. of coffee.
Tobacco-3 zol. of makhorka [low grade tobacco] and two boxes of matches per month.
ON COMMUNIST BEGINNINGS
In view of the fact that the provisionally arrested Communists aren't now in need of shoes, theirs have been taken, 280 pairs in all, and given for distribution to the troop units defending the approaches to Kronstadt. The Communists have been given bast sandals in exchange.
This is as it should be.
ADDITIONAL ALLOWANCE TO THE GARRISON
For the month of March it is decided to additionally issue to the troop units of the garrison: 1/2 lb. of sugar, 2 lb. of cabbage, 1 1/3 lb. of potato, 50 cigarettes, 1/2 lb. of markhorka and 1 box of matches.
LONG LIVE RED KRONSTADT, WITH THE POWER OF FREE SOVIETS!
DOWN WITH THE COUNTERREVOLUTION OF LEFT AND RIGHT!
THEIR EYES HAVE BEEN UNCOVERED
The Provisional Revolutionary Committe and the editors of Izvestiia are swamped by Communists' declarations of departure from the party. There is such a mass of these declarations that due to the insufficiency of space in the newspaper, it is necessary to print them in small bunches in the order of arrival.
Those quitting the party are sailors, soldiers, deceived workers and that part of the intelligentsia which was foolish enough to believe in garish slogans and inflammatory speeches. What does this flight mean? Fear of revenge from the laboring people who have torn power from the bolsheviks? No. A thousand times no.
When it was noted to a woman worker appearing today with a declaration of departure from the party that there were many such as herself fleeing the party, she answered with indignation, "Our eyes have been uncovered, but we aren't fleeing." The bright red blood of laborers, coloring the icy cover of the Gulf of Finland for the benefit of some insane leaders who are defending their own power, has opened the people's eyes.
The bright red blood of laborers, coloring cover of the Gulf of Finland for the pleasure of the insane Communists, clinging to their power, opened the people's eyes. All who still possess even a spark of integrity, even a grain of truth in a tortured soul, are fleeing. They flee the gang of demagogues without looking back.
All that remains is the criminal. Commissars of all ranks, chekists and the "bigshots" who have fed well on the bill of the hungering worker and peasant, remain, with their pockets bulging from gold. They rob museums and palaces, the property which the people won with their own blood.
They still hope for something, but in vain. The people which in one instant dared to throw from itself the yoke of tsarism and the gendarmes dares to also throw from itself the feudal chains of the Communists.
The laboring people has recovered its sight.
LEAVING THE PARTY
In connection with the situation which has been created in Kronstadt I consider it imperative to declare (in particular to the crew of the battleship Petropavlovsk) that I have not taken part in the R.C.P. since August of 1920. Therefore, I ask that I not be counted as a member since the declared time, and that it not be assumed that I am among the usurpers of power who, instead of trying to come to well known compromises and avoid spilling human blood, are throwing bombs at children who are in no way guilty.
Comrade T. IA. BRATISHEVSKY,
seaman of the battleship Petropavlovsk, 8th Company
PRODUCE
FROM GORPRODKOM
A half pound of bread is issued for March 11th by adult cards of letter A, for bread coupon No 22.
Today, March 11th, is the last day of issue of canned foods, meat, oats and wheat.
TUKIN, President of the Administration of Gorprodkom
NOTICE
Various letters are arriving at the Secretariat of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee without the signatures of their authors. The Secretariat brings to the general attention that such declarations will absolutely not be considered.
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION OF THE TOWN OF KRONSTADT
Late payment of the 40 ruble fee is slowing payment of salaries to the presidents and secretaries of uchkoms, and therefore the Department of Administration instructs all control commissions to make certain that the noted fee arrives at the Department not earlier than the 15th and not later than the 25th. If this is not done, the commissions also, besides their presidents and secretaries, will be held responsible.
KASUKHIN, assistant to the head of the Department of Administration
The General Meeting of presidents and secretaries of uchkoms will take place on Friday at 1 P.M., in the House of Unions. Attendance is mandatory. New mandates will be issued.
The Union of Workers of the Commission of the Economy directs members of the union to receive their onions within a 2 day period, after which time no kind of issue will take place.
The Committee of the Union of Metal Workers and the Revtroika jointly direct all comrades free from guard duty to be at work at the whistle, so that the number of free comrades in the workshops will be known.
Lists of those not showing up at work without good cause should be sent to the union.
The Committee of the Union of Water Transport workers brings to the attention of all members of the union that issue of onions ends March 13th.
Issue of cigarette papers will occur at the union until March 18th.
NUMBER 10
Saturday, March 12th, 1921
TODAY IS THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE OVERTHROW OF AUTOCRACY AND THE EVE OF THE FALL OF COMMISSAROCRACY
The Provisional Revolutionary Committee directs all military units of the Kronstadt Fortress and Naval Base and Soviet departments and institutions to present exact information to the Transport Department of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee by March 13th for wagon and automobile transport, having divided it into light or dray, and suited or unsuited for carrying burdens.
V. BAIKOV, Director of the Transport Department of the Prov. Rev. Com.
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
for March 11th, 1921
The day passed calmly.
Thick fog interfered with firing. About six P.M. Krasnaya Gorka opened occasional and resultless fire on the town.
Our northern forts were subjected to increased shelling by Sestroretsk and Lisy Nos.
The batteries of the adversary were silenced by the fire of our guns. Observations were made by intelligence.
In Oranienbaum, a train carrying bread was destroyed by our fire. The adversary's garrison was without bread the entire day.
Yesterday, Kronstadt was subjected to repeated raids by airplanes throwing bombs over the town.
At 4 P.M., the adversary's artillery opened fire from batteries located on the Oranienbaum Shore and from Krasnoflotskii. Our artillery answered energetically. Artillery fire subsided around 8 P.M.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Prov. Rev. Com.
SOLOVIANOV, Head of the Defense of the Kronstadt Fortress
TO ALL COMRADE SEAMEN, SOLDIERS AND WORKERS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE REPULSE OF COMMUNIST ATTACKS
FROM MARCH 8th THROUGH 12th
Dear comrades! Fate itself has layed on you the great mission of liberating dear Soviet Russia from the Communist yoke. To you dear comrades, defenders of Kronstadt, the citadel of the Soviets, has fallen the most important and responsible lot of selfless struggle. Behind your valiant chests, as behind a rock wall, your mothers, wives and children calmly await victory.
They have entrusted their lives to you, and look on you with pride and faith as the saviors of laboring Russia, and the defenders of a great truth. Prove to the entire [sic] world of laborers, dear warriors, that however difficult may the great struggle for freely elected Soviets become, Kronstadt has always stood, and stands now, a vigilant watch on guard of the laborers' interests.
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
STAGES OF REVOLUTION
It is already four years since the three-hundred year yoke of autocracy fell. The repressed people who had been guarded by the gendarmes and police of Nikolai threw down the rotting throne of the tsar. All rich and poor Russia rejoiced in freedom. Capitalists and landowners were satisfied because they could finally put more in their own pockets, stealing labor as before from the worker and peasant, without sharing with the tsar and his champions. They hoped to seat themselves firmly on the toilers' neck, having duped the latter in the Constituent Assembly to which Kerensky was slowly but surely leading.
The bourgeoisie was certain that it would be be able to continue fleecing the peasant and worker. The unexperienced peasants and workers were also pulled toward the Uchredilka, not knowing what it would promise the toiler. The slogan of the Constituent Assembly ruled over all Russia.
Temporarily. But the peasant continued to be in the same fix that he had always been, waiting for when the Uchredilka would decide the question of land. The worker was universally exploited. As before he didn't have the right to the produce of his own labor.
The toilers of Russia finally understood that they were not escaping the cabal of the landowner and capitalist, and that this cabal was preparing them a new serfdom, bourgeois power.
Patience broke, and in October of 1917 the bourgeoisie was thrown aside by a comradely blow by the seamen, army, workers and peasants. It seemed that the laboring people had entered into their rights.
But the Communist party, filled with self-seekers and having become seperated from the peasants and workers in whose name it acted, seized power into its own hands. It decided to govern the country with the aid of its commissars, by the example of landowner Russia.
For 3 years the toilers of Soviet Russia groaned in the torture chambers of the Cheka. Everywhere, the Communist ruled over the worker and peasant. A new Communist serfdom arose. The peasant became a hired hand on Soviet farms, and the worker a hireling at a bureaucratic factory. The laboring intelligentsia came to nothing. Those who tried to protest were dragged off to the Cheka. They wasted no time with those who continued to agitate... they put them against the wall.
It became stifling. Soviet Russia had turned into all-Russian katorga. Worker unrest and peasant uprising testified that patience had come to an end. A toilers' uprising approached. The time to throw down the commissarocracy arrived.
Kronstadt, vigilant guard of the Social Revolution, has not overslept. It was in the first ranks of February and October. It first raised the flag of rebellion for the Third Revolution of Laborers.
Autocracy fell. The Uchredilka has passed into the land of legend.
Commissarocracy too will collapse. The time has come for true power of laborers, for Soviet power.
.
You fell as sacrifices to the great struggle.
Your unforgettable names shall not die in the noble memory of the laboring people, for whose fortune you laid down your wild heads.
In the battle's roar you did not think of yourselves.
Warriors for an idea, you did not tremble before the pack of tyrants.
You, the first sacrifices of the Third Revolution, of the Revolution of Labor, gave an example of steadfast firmness in battle for your rights.
You went forward under the slogan Victory or Death.
You died.
We who are alive shall carry the battle to its end.
We vow on your fresh graves to be victorious or to lie next to you.
Already, the light of the Great Liberation of Laborers has begun to shine
KRONSTADT AND SMOLNY
We hide nothing, and hide from no one.
Everything we do, we do openly because our cause is rightful. It is to realize the common desire of the laboring people, to realize true Soviet power. No one can stop us from doing this.
And truly, in any case, bands of chekists and other murderers won't stop us. Heroism, the garrison's morale and the populace's calm certainty can serve to guarantee this.
And what is being done at the same time in the camp of the adversary? Interesting newspapers from March 9th which we recently received serve as the best answer. We have hung these newspapers in the windows of Sovtsentropechat so that citizens can personally convince themselves of the unbounded, blatant lies with which the newspapers, by orders from Smolny, try to hide the truth the truth from the workers and soldiers.
Krasnaia Gazeta has come to the point that they are claiming that, "cadets broke into the town. Vershinin, a member of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, was captured in the streets..."
Pathetic lackeys of the Communists, whom do you want to deceive?
Comrade Vershinin has been captured, this is true. But do you want to know, citizens, under what circumstances Comrade Vershinin was taken?
Allow me. On March 8th a group of the opponent's troops, with a white flag in front, set out toward our patrols. Trusting in the flag, presuming that a delegation was coming to us for negotiations, Comrade Vershinin threw a revolver from himself and went out unarmed to meet the truce envoys.
But what does one more Judas kiss mean to traitors? They captured the unarmed truce envoy and carried him away with them...
That, citizens, is the entire truth for you! The lackeys from Krasnaia Gazeta did not even succeed in agreeing with the lackeys from Pravda. At the same time when the first was reporting that two thousand 'gold epaulets' [tsarist officers] had snuck into Kronstadt, Pravda says they were only "hundreds of White Guard Russian officers."
The newspapers are before you citizens. Read and learn how the Communists deceive the people.
We hide nothing. Their lies are our best agitator.
CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF MARCH 11TH
Delegates gathered at five o'clock in the Hall of Assemblies. Before the beginning of the session, Comrade Petrichenko distributed the Bolshevist Pravda and Krasnaia to the delegates. It was easily felt that Revolutionary Kronstadt does not fear the lying Communist press. The session opened at 4:55 under the roar of the bombardment of our glorious floating fortresses. The Conference stands to honor the memory of the fallen red eagles of Kronstadt.
The produce question was discussed first. The report of the Prov. Rev. Com. was heard with deep attention. As was clarified after a short debate, Kronstadt's produce situation is completely fine. The Conference decided to consider the actions of the Rev. Com. to be correct, and proper for the current situation.
Current affairs were discussed next.
A report on the requisitioning of boots from the arrested Communists for soldiers' use was met with thunderous applause and calls of, "Right! Take their winter coats!!!"
It was decided to celebrate the fall of autocracy at the same time as the overthrow of commissarocracy, since there is no time now to take away from military action. A representative of the workers of the sewing workshop of the Soviet of the People's Economy reported on the preparation of 3000 sets of underwear, which it was decided to use for those at the front line.
Comrade Kilgast requested that the delegates spread the request for comrades to donate shoes for the soldiers.
The question was raised of liberating Communists on bail. After a debate, in which Comrade Petrichenko noted the worth of a Bolshevik's word and that in general those arrested are only the most unrestful, it was decided to leave the Communists under arrest so long as events have not been wrapped up and military actions not come to an end. (Ilyin, Galapov, Guriev and others who were left at liberty continued to carry on agitation and to gather secretly. Ilyin had the gall to phone Krasnaya Gorka and give it information on how things stood in Kronstadt.)
It was decreed that further arrests could be carried out by the Rev. Com. only upon an inquiry into the question by the revtroikas.
One of the comrades related a fact which showed that there are also honest Communists, who are fulfilling military assignments selflessly and in an exemplary way.
At the end of the session, Comrade Petrichenko proposed that the Conference thank the defenders of the approaches to Kronstadt. This was met with long, unceasing, stormy applause.
"OUR GENERALS"
The Communists are spreading rumors that there are White Guard generals, officers and priests included in the composition of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee. In order to stop this once and for all, we bring to their attention that the Committee consists of the following fifteen members:
1) PETRICHENKO--a senior clerk on the battleship Petropavlovsk;
2) YAKOVENKO--a telephone operator of the Kronstadt Regional Communications Service;
3) OSOSOV--a machinist on the battleship Sevastopol;
4) ARKHIPOV--a machinist foreman;
5) PEREPELKIN--an electrician on the battleship Sevastopol;
6) PATRUSHEV--an electrician foreman on the Petropavlovsk;
7) KUPOLOV--a senior doctor's assistant;
8) VERSHININ--a seaman/combatant on the battleship Sevastopol;
9) TUKIN--an artisan in the Electro-Mechanical Factory;
10) ROMANENKO--a watchman in the Repair Docks;
11) ORESHIN--Director of the 3rd Labor School;
12) VALK--a master in the Sawmill;
13) PAVLOV--a worker in the Mine Workshops;
14) BAIKOV--Director of Transport String of the Administration of Contruction of the Fortress;
15) KILGAST--an ocean navigator.
These are our generals: the Brusilovs, Kamenevs and the rest.
NEWS FROM PETROGRAD
--Pravda reports that, "in connection with the situation which has been created, the Celebration of the Women's Proletariat in Petrograd is temporarily postponed."
What kind of honest working woman would go to this celebration when stranglers of freedom and chekists are in power?
How could anyone think of holidays?
GENERAL MEETING OF DESERTERS IN THE 4TH NORTHERN BARRACKS
The General Meeting of soldiers who have crossed over to us, having first elected a revtroika consisting of Comrades Azarenko, Kuznetsov and Davydenko, passed the following resolution: "We, deserters, of a newly formed battalion, express our complete faith in the battalion commander, Comrade Gribov. We are ready, at the first call of the Rev. Com. of the Town of Kronstadt, to go to the next life defending the repressed.
seaman TROFIMOV, President of the Meeting
KUZNETSOV, Secretary
SOVIETS, AND NOT A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, ARE THE LABORER'S STRONGHOLD
YOUNG HERO
The 14 year old lad Podriadchikov has thrust himself into one of the reconnaissance detachments. However they tried to convince him to give it up, he persisted.
"You have to give me a rifle, and that's it!"
They were forced to give in.
At night the detachment set out on reconnaissance. Podriadchikov did not lag behind the other comrades.
In the dark, they stumbled on an outpost of the adversary, and a crossfire began. A stray bullet hit Podriadchikov in the leg at the very moment when the outpost gave up and retreated.
"Cut the leg off or bind it up, but I won't lag behind," cried the young hero. They quickly made a dressing, and Podriadchikov walked on. He is now lying in the hospital, and cannot wait to heal from his wound so that he can once more dash forward.
Last year, the Communists executed his father in a village.
LEAVING THE PARTY
All those leaving the ranks of the R.C.P. are directed to turn in their party booklets and identifications to their electoral troikas. Those leaving the party in the future and giving declarations are directed to do so right now.
Declarations of departure from the R.C.P. arrive unceasingly at the editorial offices, but in view of their great quantity and the insufficiency of space, the editors are unable to publish them immediately, and will include them as possible in following editions of the newspaper.
Working in Kronstadt for three years as a teacher at the Labor School, and also being active in the army and naval units, I have moved ahead honestly, leg to leg with the laborers of free Kronstadt. I have given them all my strengths in the field of people's education. The broad sweep of the wave of enlightenment which the Communists began, Soviet construction and the laborer's class struggle with the exploiters all drew me into the Communist party, of which I have been a member since February 1st, 1921. During the time that I have been in the party, a great number of fundamental failings in the party "heights" have been opened before me, spattering the beautiful idea of Communism with muck. Among these, bureaucratism, separation from the masses, dictatorship and the large number of so called "hangers on", careerist and the like have acted to repel the masses. All these things have given birth to a deep chasm between the masses and the party. They have turned it into an organization which is powerless in the struggle against the country's internal ruin.
The present moment has opened people's eyes to the most terrible facts. When the many thousand person populace of Kronstadt proposed a number of fair demands to the "defenders of the laborer's interests," the bureaucratized heights of the R.C.P. rejected them. Instead of dealing freely with the laborers of the town of Kronstadt, they opened fratricidal fire on the workers, sailors and soldiers of the revolutionary town. As if that wasn't enough, they throw bombs from airplanes on the defenseless women and children of Kronstadt. This has pleated even more thorns in the Communist Party's crown.
I do not want to be a supporter of the comrade Communists' barbarous excesses, and I also don't believe in the tactics of the party "heights," which have called for the spilling of blood and for great distress among the people's masses. Therefore, I openly declare before the Provisional Revolutionary Committee that since the moment of the first shot at Kronstadt I no longer consider myself a candidate member of the R.C.P., and give my entire support to the slogan taken by the laborers of Kronstadt, "All Power to Soviets, and not Parties!"
T. DENISOV, teacher in the 2nd Labor School
I ask that you no longer consider me a member of the R.C.P.. Seeing the tactics of the butcher Trotsky, I consider it a disgrace to be in its ranks. I have been and will be with the people, and will die the death of the honorable with them.
N. ALEKSANDROV, artisan of the Steamship Factory
We have watched the course of unfolding events in order to find out the truth behind all the loud words which authority, in the person of Trotsky and the rest from the camp of the evil kestrels, spoke and suggested to us, preaching the ideas of the R.C.P. With their first shot at the workers and peasants, in the person of the Kronstadt proletariat which has arisen to fight for a rightful cause, we understood that it was time for us to throw the shroud from our eyes, put there by those who call themselves warriors for the people's liberation. We decided that it was time to say for all to hear, "betrayers of the people, spillers of innocent blood, hands off power, and eternal damnation to you."
We ask that from the present moment you no longer consider us to be members of the R.C.P. We ask that you accept us into your midst as honest toilers who are prepared to stand at any time in defense of the Provisonal Revolutionary Committee of the Town of Kronstadt, and even, if it should be necessary, to lay down our lives for the workers and peasants, and for the power of free Soviets.
I. GUROV, A. YAKUSHIN, seamen of the Predbaza [sic]
The Communist party has lost the faith of the laboring masses, and its power has passed without any violence or blood into the hands of the revolutionary laboring masses of Kronstadt. None the less, the Central Authorities are blockading Kronstadt and sending out provocative broadcasts and proclamations, trying to anchor its power with hunger, cold, treachery and force. Considering such a policy a betrayal of the fundamental slogan of the Socialist Revolution, "All Power to the Laborers," I think that the Communists have put themselves in the ranks of the enemies of all labor. There is only one exit, to stay at your post to the end, and battle mercilessly with all who try to tie the laboring masses to their authority with force, treachery and provocation. We break all connection with the party.
MILORADOVICH, BEZSONOV AND MARKOV, former members of the R.C.P.
fort TOTLEBEN (MORSKOI)
At the General Meeting of the R.C.P. of the crew of the Transport String of the Naval Fortress of Kronstadt, in the presence of the secretary of the Revtroika, a resolution of departure from the party was passed by the following members: P. Goriachev, I. Iakovlev, Vasilii Likhrov, Nikolai Shubin, N. Scharov, P. Veselov, B. Belov, I. Makarov, Vasilii Kolosov, I. Khapov, Smorodinov, A. Arkhipov, Smirnov, Novikov, N. M. Kovkin, G. Mikhailov, K. Krylov, A. Smirnov, N. Chertkov, Ukhlin, V. Serikov, A. Khrul, A. Okunev, I. Andreev, N. Ivanov, A. Egorov. 26 persons in all.
Because of the slogan held by the R.C.P., "All power to the Soviets," and because of the one-sided party agitation, and also not wishing to just remain a witness to the building of Soviet power, I entered the R.C.P. in June of 1920. However, I have been convinced that the party does not express the will of the broad layers of the populace, the workers and peasants. This is in part supported by letters received from the provinces about the difficulties and oppression which the party directs at the village peasantry in the localities. Because of this, I ask that you no longer consider me a member of the R.C.P., and I give my support to the resolution passed at the meeting on March 1st. I place myself entirely under the authority of the actions and decisions of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of the Town of Kronstadt.
P. BARANOV, Head of the Watch of the Kronstadt Port
Having discussed the current situation, we, Communists of the collective of the Communications Service of the Naval Fortress of Kronstadt, have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the Communist Party, having torn away from the broad masses, has set out on the path of bureaucratism and repression against the laborers' freedom. In three years in power, the party has brought the country to the wild raging of the Cheka, which has widely carried out executions and used all means to strangle and mock the laborers, and covered itself with their name. The Republic writhes in agony, brought to beggary by the policies of the bloodthirsty and power-blinded leaders. We greet the Provisional Revolutionary Committee, which is courageously raising rebellion against the party dictatorship and oligarchy. We give our support to the slogan, "Power to Soviets of Laborers, and not to Parties."
Down with the party dictatorship!
Long live the true power of laborers!
We the undersigned to this resolution declare our departure from the Communist Party, and ask that you accept us into the midst of the non-party comrades, to carry out joint work for the good of the Republic.
V. Remizov, V. Gromov, A. Elesin, P. Arsentiev, F. Kozyrev, V. Zinoviev, N. Vasiliev, V. Nikolaev, P. Blintsov, L. Semukov, P. Trubochistov, I. Starostin, V. Andreev, N. King, E. Grigoriev, P. Kiprushkin, A. Sedelkin, I. Sheremet.
I, a telephonist of the central station of fort Shants, being by nature a person of weak character, was not strong enough to stand against the force of the bloody Communists who recruited me into their party during party week.
Having made myself, or, more truthfully, when the Communists had made me a blind weapon in their hands, my beliefs about their actions had not changed. In my soul I realized that the bureaucrat Communists would never achieve the prosperity of the laboring masses by way of violence, base deceipt, spilling blood, and the other acts of our authority.
But fear! Only fear for my own life did not let me denounce my party colleagues, bloody Communists.
And I was silent, staying on the edges.
But then arose the hour of repayment. Communist power, until then seemingly undefeatable, was overturned. The rabble of criminals, in the person of the Communists, was arrested. The laboring people breathed free, having thrown down the heavy burden...
And I? I am a Communist. The bloody document, the party booklet which remained with me, and which has now been turned in to the Revtroika of fort Shants, says so.
Comrades, forgive me for my unwilling stay in the R.C.P., and I will try to justify your faith. I recognize the Prov. Rev. Com., and cry together with you, "Hoorah!"
N. ROMANOV, telephonist of fort Shants
Finding the methods to which Lord Trotsky has resorted extremely horrifying, staining the party with the blood of its own brother workers, I consider it a moral obligation to leave the party. I ask that this be announced in the press.
V. GRABEZHEV, President of the Union of Construction Workers,
candidate member of the party
Declarations have also arrived at the editorial offices from the following:
131) I. Petrushkovsky, seaman of the Academic Mining Detachment, 132) also Maksimovsky, 133) also Chernyshev, 134) also Burmashev, 135) also Kulikov, 136) also D. Vorobiev, 137) also V. Pushkin, 138) V. Galonin, seaman of the battleship Petropavlovsk, 139) also F. Zaitsev, 140) also Shpinev, 141) also P. Samokhin, 142) also Iudin, 143) also N. Butuzov, 144) also F. Zhbirov, 145) also P. Orekhov, 146) also Olshevsky, 147) also Kudriashev, 148) also Misiuk, 149) also O. Rykov, 150) also D. Pavlov, 151) also Lobanov, 152) also A. Zuev, 153) also N. Kolosov, 154) also I. Pavlik-Linker, 155) also A. Svitin, 156) also F. Tkachuk, 157) also Sholopaev, 158) also S. Makarov, 159) also Klimin, 160) P. Chernin, 161) also M. Gusev, 162) also M. Lazarenko, 163) also A. Shilov, 164) also I. Eremeev, 165) also F. Izhek, 166) also Makrezhetsky, 167) also Smetanin, 168) also A. Gordykov, 169) also M. Grigoriev, 170) also A. Dronin, 171) also S. Shavanov, 172) also I. Ershov, 173) also M. Flerov, 174) also S. Soloviev, 175) also S. Kozlov, 176) also I. Diakonov, 177) also K. Zhukin, 178) also Shpinov, 179) also I. Matiukhin, 180) also A. Kocherin, 181) also T. Bychkov, 182) also N. Ermakov, 183) also Zhevenin, 184) also Zhukovsky, 185) O. Stepur, artisan of the Mine Laboratory, 186) F. Strelkov, employee of the Prodbaza, 187) also A. Petukhov, 188) also I. Reshetnikov, People's Investigator of the II District, 189) F. Matulik, employee of the Naval Bakery, 190) M. Malafeev, seaman of the crew of the Guard Headquarters, 191) V. Gogolev, serviceman of the Communications Service of the Administration of the Artillery, 192) S. Afanasiev, sldr. of the 4th Division of the Artillery, 193) S. Kurenev, employee of the Water Transport, 194) Lauve, employee of the Internal Guard Ship, 195) also G. Grinshtein, 196) also S. Shcherbo, 197) A. Sushilnikov, soldier, 198) V. Trepetsky, member of the R.C.P., 199) also Danchenko, 200) also A. Esenovsky, 201) A. Egorov, doctors' assistant of the Internal Guard Ship, 202) also E. Belozerov, 203) A. Serkov, worker of the Steamship Plant, 204) also K. Nikolaev, 205) also A. Belikov, 206) also A. Lysov, 207) also Bezzubikov, 208) also Vladkmerov, 209) also Voronin.
PRODUCE
FROM GORPRODKOM
Today canned foods are issued to all, counted against the bread norm for March 15th:
Letter A - for bread coupon No 20 " B - " " " No 24 Series B - " " " No 8 " C - " " " No 2 " A - for prod. coupon No 9
3/4 lb. of salted beef is issued from the meat stores, counted against the bread norm for March 14th.
Letter A - for bread coupon No 8 " B - " " " No 8 Series B - " " " No 9 " C - " " " No 8
1 lb. of bread is issued by letter A for March 12th and 13th, for bread coupon No 21. 3 lbs. of oats are issued by letter B for bread coupon No 23. 1 lb. of dried bread by series B for bread coupon No 10. 1 1/2 pound of barley by series A for produce coupon No 10. 1 1/2 pound of barley by series C for bread coupon No 23, counted against the bread norm for March 12th, 13th and 14th.
Adult cafeterias are provisionally open from 10 A.M. until 6 P.M.
LEVAKOV, for the President of the Administration of Gorprodkom
KAPUSTIN, Manager
NOTICES
On the basis of a telephonogram from the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of March 11th, in view of the military standing of the town, the March 12th holiday is moved to an unspecified date, and it is therefore instructed to consider SATURDAY a normal (working) day.
MATVEEV, Provisional and Acting Director of the Department of Labor
A. FEDOROV, member of the Central Troika
The Union of Printers brings to the attention of members of the union that issue of buttons, cigarette papers and "Baker" brand powder ends March 15th.
NUMBER 11
Sunday, March 13th, 1921
ORDER
OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
No 6
Left at liberty, the Communists are abusing the trust which the Prov. Rev. Com. has shown them. They have been discovered attempting to send light signals to the enemy.
Because of this, the Prov. Rev. Com. asks all Kronstadt citizens to vigilantly watch for enemies of the people, to urgently bring to the attention of the Rev. Com. all occurrences of signals being sent, and to restrain the guilty parties until authorities arrive.
Traitors and spies are warned that they will be dealt with on the spot, without any court, by the laws dictated by the moment.
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
ORDER
ON THE DEFENSE OF THE NAVAL FORTRESS OF KRONSTADT
No 3 (COMBAT)
March 11th, 1921, Fortress of Kronstadt
§ 1
I order that the adversary's airplanes not be fired upon from small arms and machine guns, either by individuals or crews. Such fire, being completely without purpose, cannot cause damage to the airplanes and is a useless waste of bullets.
OSOSOV, for the President of the Prov. Rev. Com.
SOLOVIANOV, Head of the Defense of the Kronstadt Fortress
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
from 24:00, March 11th until 12:00, March 12th
There was calm until 10 A.M.
From 10 A.M. on there were occasional artillery exchanges and raids by the adversary's airplanes, which threw out several bombs.
The bombs caused no damage in the town.
from 12:00 through 24:00, March 12th
Around 1 P.M., raids by the adversary's airplanes began, with bombs being thrown on the town. There was artillery fire by the adversary until 7 P.M., to which the artillery of the fortress responded energetically.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Military Revolutionary Committee
SOLOVIANOV, Head of the Defense
YOU WON'T INTIMIDATE THEM!
The Bolsheviks continue to throw bombs from airplanes. They think that they will intimidate the populace. Their only means of action is lead.
They have nothing else left. They are washed out. The blood of peaceful citizens, women and even children they obviously don't value at all.
All the citizens of Kronstadt have been welded into a single mass by their anger. Just one feeling burns in their souls, a feeling of hate for the oppressor Communists. The residents of the town do not face current events passively, as the Bolshevik newspapers slander, but with a great enthusiasm. All citizens divide the burden of the struggle which which has been raised by the garrison and workers of the rebellious town. They all await a new, bright life, free from any yoke.
You can't intimidate them with airplanes.
The innocent victims lie on the heads of the Communists. But the populace remains calm, and doesn't give in to outbursts of purposeless anger against the insane oppressors. The populace bears itself heroically and selflessly.
Airplanes won't intimidate them!
IT IS NECESSARY TO BREAK AWAY
The Communist Party has swelled greatly in numbers since it took power in its own hands, but it was lost a great deal in quality because of this. It sucked in a huge mass of people who entered it with the goal of receiving a cushy job. Self-seekers among the hangers-on finally brought us to the point where the ideological element in the party, which sincerely wanted to serve the laborers, became powerless to do anything. Besides that, during these 3 years the party leaders have become separated from the working masses, and long ago brought corruption and ideological confusion into the party.
The Tenth Party Congress, which was to have gathered in March, would undoubtably have recognized these differences of belief. The party might have split if its upper reaches wouldn't change their policies, which have led to complete contradiction with the entire worker and peasant masses. But events don't wait. The long muffled dissatisfaction of the masses has burst out, and has taken the character of a people's movement.
Besides that, in order to come to deal with with the masses' demands for new elections to the Soviets, which do not now express the will of the laborers, and about changing the policy toward the peasantry, the Communist bureaucrats decided to put the movement down with martial law and with executions of workers and peasants. Such a situation among the upper reaches of the party, which have placed in motion every possible repression and lie to hold on to power, cannot be made right by a lone person devoted to the ideal of Communism. Every honest Communist must break away from those who cannot find any other language for the workers and peasants than the language of cannons and bombs.
And how should this breaking away be done? Some comrades have done this by leaving the party completely, and becoming non-party comrades. But there are those who are tied strongly to the idea of the Communist Revolution, and who have drawn the Marxist worldview deeply into themselves. Such comrades, maintaining their party membership, must loudly declare that they will not take moral responsibility for that which the upper reaches of the party have done against the workers and peasants. The must honestly help in making right those deficiencies with which our Soviet Russia is so rich. Comrade Palanov has already acted in this way. I add my voice to his. May other comrade Communists also speak out like this.
M. KOPILOVICH, candidate member of the R.C.P.
TO THE WORKERS OF THE WORLD!
The following broadcast was sent by the Prov. Rev. Com.:
Kronstadt.
To all... to all... to all...
to the Workers of the world!
The airborn Communist predators have begun to envy Wilhelm's laurels. They hover over Kronstadt like kestrels, throwing bombs and killing the peaceful populace, our wives and children. But this will not stop us from fighting to the end for the holy interests of the laboring masses. May the workers of the world know that we are struggling for the true power of the laboring people, while bloody Trotsky and well fed Zinoviev with their champions are struggling for the power of the Communist oppressor Party.
May the workers of the world know that these criminals are hiding the truth from the people, and letting out the slanderous lie that tsarist generals lead us. It has been twelve days now since this handful of true hero proletarians, these workers, sailors and soldiers, isolated from the whole world, took on themselves the whole weight of the blow struck by the Communist Party butchers. But we are cheerful. We will bring the cause which we have begun to a victorious end, or die with the cry, "Long live freely elected Soviets."
May the workers of the world know this.
Comrades, we need your moral support. Protest against the oppressor commissarocrats. Remember the innocent victims of Louvain [Belgium] and Reims [France]. Then Imperialism was defending its power over the people, and now that same power over the people is being defended by the Communist Party, which has raised its hand against revolutionary Kronstadt!
We send damnation to the butchers!
With comradely greetings,"
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY
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
NEWS FROM PETROGRAD
At the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P., now taking place in Moscow, the Control Commission made a report on its activity. Of 200 cases investigated by the Commission, 50 turned out to be of criminal character. The cases involved occurred due to the workers responsible using their position for personal comfort. The Commission raised the question before the Central Committee of the necessity of carrying out the most merciless struggle with the unbelievable excesses which responsible figures are allowing themselves.
What a great group, there's nothing to say!
The following order was issued by the Commander of the Baltic Fleet in connection with presently occurring events.
"A strict revolutionary order is to be enforced on all ships, and in all units and institutions of Baltflot. A decisive struggle is to be carried out against any and all instances of violating order and discipline. No kind of assembly is to take place in ships, units and institutions. Access by outside persons to ships, units and institutions without permission of the commissar is categorically forbidden."
"All commanders and commissars are ordered to be at their places. The Revolutionary Tribunal of Baltflot is ordered to punish those guilty of violating this order with all the severity of wartime law."
THEY ARE TAKING AWAY RUSSIAN GOLD
In relation to the arrest of Russian gold located on the steamship Ankon, the news agency Gavas reports that 160,000 rubles in gold were hidden in the cabin of a member of the Russian trade mission. After the arrest, the gold was handed over to the care of an Italian bank.
GREAT THANKS
It is impossible to find the words to suitably thank those kind Kronstadters who, despite the meaningless ration received both earlier and now, are tearing the last crumbs from themselves every day and bringing us at the forward outposts a dinner of soup and even bread. There have even been occurrences when bread received by coupons in the stores was given to soldiers on their way to the forts, at the same time blessing them, making the cross and giving them the very best wishes.
We bless the kind Kronstadters, and believe that the great holy cause will be taken to its end.
You, and with you also we, must show the laborers of Russia and the entire world that Kronstadters are able to fight not only with the bourgeoisie but also with any and all enslavers of the laborer's will, even if they come from the left.
Long live the power of true Soviets, and not parties!
ANDREEV, soldier of the 560th Infantry Battalion
FRATERNAL AID
The people of Kronstadt are trying in all ways to come to the aid of the comrade soldiers who are defending the rights of the laboring people. Yesterday, Boris Scheglov, clerk of the Port Transport String, gave the manager of the building of the Prov. Rev. Com. two pairs of boots for the brother warriors.
FROM THE AGITATION CENTER OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
We, revolutionary seamen, soldiers and workers of Kronstadt have swept the hated Communist yoke away with a comradely blow, and have sworn to be victorious or die. There can be no compromise with the oppressors.
We will keep our vow. The much suffering Russian laboring people, tortured by the Cheka, starved, carrying more than four years of cruel war, await us as deliverers, holding out their dry and calloused hands.
We see that the Communist authorities deal cruelly with anyone who speaks a word of sympathy toward us. We did not only decide to struggle with our enemies with bayonets and cannons, but also with the word. We are dedicating all our strengths so that our word, our press, might freely uncover all the crimes of the Communist Party and all the horrors of the torture chambers of the Cheka. We want to uncover everything that the oppressors resorted to in trying to seat themselves securely and safely on the throne.
But the Bolshevik authorities, the power of sticks and bayonets, does not allow us to speak freely with our deceived brothers. In defending ourselves, we all remember that it is our fraternal blood, the blood of deceived toilers which is pouring, and not that of commissars and party leaders. They are far away, separated from the carnage they have made. On soft couches, they discuss how to better deceive the whole laboring people, and choose which military unit to send to certain death against Kronstadt.
In answering their cannons, we did not abandon the matter of propaganda, and we have taken all measures so that our press might be spread not only in Kronstadt but also among the adversary's troops. Comrade seamen, sacrificing themselves, cross the firing lines. So that there would be less blood spilled, and so that not a single confused soldier would remain with the deceiver Trotsky, it is necessary to expand agitation even more. It is necessary to increase the the number of cadres in the army which propagandizes the idea of the power of laboring people.
Everyone in who's heart burns a holy hatred against the crimes committed by the Communists, come with identification from the revolutionary troikas to the Agitation Center of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee (House of the People). Come speak to Comrade Perepelkin, to be enlisted in the ranks of the agitators.
We believe that our call will receive a warm answer.
PEREPELKIN, Director of the Agitation Center of the Prov. Rev. Com.
TO YOUTH!
(Voice of the Young Proletarian)
Comrade young proletarians!
Comrade members of the Communist Youth League, each of us well knows the situation which has formed in the Republic, and in particular in Kronstadt. Each of us has seen and heard everything.
Comrades! After the October Revolution, when power fell into the hands of the now bankrupt Communist Party, many of us with our passionate youthful hearts, as is always the case with youth, aspired to something bright and new, to something which was to give us and our fathers and mothers a bright laboring life. We thought that the Communist Party would bring us to that bright future, and we strived for the party. For three years, we with our fathers and brothers spilled our young blood for the Communist Soviets.
For three years we lived in expectation of an improvement in our lives. But after all three years of struggle, cold and hunger we saw that our lives were not improving but worsening. We were convinced once and for all that the Communist Party, with all its commissars who feast during plague, chekists and anti-profiteer troops, would lead us to certain death.
Every aware comrade cannot and must not blame the Communist Party, as such. They will blame those Communists who, being in power, abused the people's faith, and who, seeing their distress, mercilessly robbed them. The patience of the laboring masses has been exhausted. The workers and sailors of Peter raised the banner of revolt against the oppressors, the Communists and chekists who have been set up by the Communist Soviets.
This uprising was put down by cadets and Communist forces, and hidden from us. We fed only on rumors. But these rumors, speaking of base acts by the Communist Party, which considers itself the expression of the people's will while at the same time executing masses of hungry and cold workers who have rebelled, were, as we all know, confirmed by our delegation of seaman. And Kronstadt arose.
At our giant meeting of the garrison and workers, and afterwards at the Conference of Delegates, the banner of uprising was lifted not by generals but by seamen, sailors and workers. Only sailors, workers and soldiers sit in our Rev. Com.
Kronstadt will again be "Red," the Communists write in their base and lying organs. We answer that our heroic Kronstadt was, is and will always be Red.
With their endless lying leaflets and articles they haven't closed but just still more opened our eyes to their crimes.
Comrades! The writer of these lines, although not having joined the party was and remains a Communist by conviction. But the acts of our Communist Party: executions of workers; murder of peaceful residents with bombs; deception of the people with words and press, are shameful and it is time to put an end to them!
To a unification of strengths. We must all, from the smallest to the greatest, rise in a comradely way to the defense of our dear freedom against the strong paws of the bureaucrat Communists.
Comrades, young proletarians, and in particular members of the Communist Youth League, whose eyes the Communist Party has closed for three years, all as one to the aid of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee!
All for free Red Soviets!
I. DVORIAN, long-time worker in the Russian Communist Youth Organization
TO WOMEN
Comrade women! Your brothers, husbands and sons, our great warriors for liberation from the Communist yoke, are selflessly standing in defense of Kronstadt, risking their life every minute.
Comrade women! Support our warriors. Be ready to lighten the sufferings of the wounded, which there isn't a single armed struggle without, with female sensitivity and a caring female hand.
Enlist in the Red Sisters of Compassion. May our defenders feel once more time that they are not forgotten, that the thankful people of Kronstadt remember and care for them.
Forward to the defense of Red Kronstadt, warriors with the red banner of Labor, women with the red cross.
It is possible to enlist at the Department of Health.
A SMALL SATIRE
AN OVERHEARD CONVERSATION
"Hello hello! Comrade, give me Petrograd, Smolny... Smolny?... This is Trotsky."
"Hello comrade, this is Zinoviev. How are things?"
"Great... We've succeeded in duping a whole herd of soldiers to believe that Kronstadt is destroyed, and that all that's left for them is to occupy the outposts and guard positions."
"They went?"
"They went. Oh, but the traitors from the Krasnogorsk bakery refused to give them bread for the road... They say they need it themselves..."
"And what of it?"
"Nothing... I convinced them; issued them each 2 pounds of unground wheat. They broke, and I sent Dulkis and Razin with them, in the rear with machine guns."
"Stupendous... When do you think you'll take Kronstadt?"
"Devil only knows. Our detachments surrender, but for some reason the Petropavlovsk doesn't want to, even though I asked them to very strongly. There's just no kind of mutuality... even out of conscience."
"What's this comrade, talking about conscience? Look, a pig gets conscience after its been hit with a nice thick stick, doesn't it?"
"Oh, they're devils, but seriously... and not with a stick, but with twelve-inchers [cannons]... What's up with you?"
"Its all right with us. The workers are striking, the seamen and soldiers are unrestful, the populace is starving... In any case, the Tsar's train is at the ready, in case we have to make a quick get away."
With that, the conversation was cut off.
A TELEPHONE OPERATOR
LEAVING THE PARTY
All those leaving the ranks of the R.C.P. are directed to turn in their party booklets and identifications to their electoral troikas. Those leaving the party in the future and giving declarations are directed to do so right now.
Declarations of departure from the R.C.P. arrive unceasingly at the editorial offices, but in view of their great quantity and the insufficiency of space, the editors are unable to publish them immediately, and will include them as possible in following editions of the newspaper.
We, Communists of the collective of the Naval Hospital, ask that you no longer consider us members of the R.C.P. It has bred bureaucratism and careerism anew, and doesn't want to listen to the voice of the people, but has sent deceived sons of the Republic against Kronstadt, saying that bands of White Guards are bossing us. But we ourselves see who specifically overturned the commune's power. It was our own comrade sailors, soldiers and workers.
Comrade Communists, it is time to come to your senses!
Enough of being passive about the current moment. In a comradely way, work together with our Rev. Com.
Long live Soviet Power!
Long live the real fraternal union of workers and peasants!
IUNKER, A. ILYIN, former members of the R.C.P.
Declarations have also arrived from the following:
210) V. Zaitsev, serviceman, 211) also V. Kashabin, 212) Zhazhmorskaya, employee of the Naval Hospital, 213) also Zavodchikova, 214) also V. Baranov, 215) O. Vinogradov, sldr, 216) A. Skorodkov, sldr., 217) M. Lavrov, sldr., 218) A. Berezkin, member of the Union of Water Transporters, 219) V. Montiev, member of the R.C.P., 220) N. Starshinov, seaman, 221) also M. Maksimov, 222) N. Omelchuk, member of the R.C.P., 223) also V. Velikanov, 224) also Ia. Miagkov, 225) also Ermolaev, 226) G. Katachev, sldr., 227) E. Nikolaev, sldr. 228) V. Zakharov, artisan of the Galvano-Plastics Workshop of the Kronstadt Port, 229) N. Savelchikov, employee of the Department of the People's Education, 230) A. Borodavsky, telegraph operator; military seamen of the Machinists School: 231) Bogdanov, Ivan.
PRODUCE
FROM GORPRODKOM
Yeast is issued by Rudkevich the yeast maker by children's cards of series B, for bread coupon No 11.
Citizens who have registered their cards at store No 18 must receive meat and fatty products at store No 19.
LEVAKOV, for the President of the Administration of Gorprodkom
NOTICE
The Central Troika of the Bureau of Trade Unions directs that the 8 hour working day be reinstituted, since the 6 hour working day was introduced only because of lack of heating material. The moment we are living through urgently demands that all forces be strained for the fulfillment of works of military character. Therefore, the Central Troika of the Bureau of Trade Unions directs that from March 14th, work is to be carried on from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M.
A. FEDOROV, President of the Revtroika
A. SKVORTSOV, Secretary
--The Revtroika requests that representatives and secretaries from the uchkoms assemble by 2 P.M. on March 13th at the trade union offices to receive new identifications. Attendance is mandatory for all.
--The Union Vsemediksantrud [All Medical and Sanitation Labor] announces that the last day of issue of onions to members of the union will be the 16th.
--The Housing subdepartment instructs all uchkoms to give exact information to the subdepartment within a week on all free apartments and rooms, and also on apartments subject to consolidation.
ROSCHIN, Director of the Housing subdepartment
Lost: produce card letter B, No 36802, belonging to citizen Stepanova.
NUMBER 12
Monday, March 14th, 1921
The Revtroika of the Naval Hospital informs citizens that
March 14th at 8 P.M., in the hospital chapel
REQUIEM SERVICES WILL BE PERFORMED FOR THE FALLEN DEFENDERS OF THE APPROACHES TO KRONSTADT.
BODRY, President of the Revtroika of the Naval Hospital
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
from 24:00, March 12th until 24:00 March 13th
About 3 A.M. a party of the adversary tried to attack from the South, but was driven off by our fire.
From 3:30 A.M. there was calm.
About the 12th hour, an adversary flying machine flew over the town and threw out bombs.
From 12 A.M. until 9 P.M. the adversary carried an artillery fire on our batteries.
Krasnoflotskii fired several heavy rounds at the town, but thanks to the fire of our artillery, it was soon forced to cease fire.
Over the course of the entire day, the adversary's airplanes flew over Kotlin [the island on which Kronstadt is located] and threw bombs at the town. Thanks to the energetic work of our anti-aircraft batteries against the airplanes, substantial harm was not inflicted on the town.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Rev. Com.
SOLOVIANOV, Head of the Defense of the Kronstadt Fortress
TO LIVE WITH WOLVES IS TO BE LIKE A WOLF
It was reasonable to expect that at the great moment of the laborer's struggle for their violated rights, Lenin would not be a hypocrite, and would speak the truth. Somehow, in the opinion of the workers and peasants, the concept of Lenin on the one hand and Trotsky and Zinoviev on the other came to be different. If they didn't believe a single word from Zinoviev and Trotsky, faith in Lenin was still not lost.
But...
On March 8th, the 10th Congress of the R.C.P. opened, and Lenin is repeating the usual Communist lies about rebel Kronstadt. He declared that the movement is occuring under the slogan of "free trade," and then added, "it was for Soviets, and against only the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks," not forgetting to implicate, "White generals and petty bourgeois anarchist elements."
We see that Lenin, speaking filth, has become confused, and lets slip the truth that at its root the movement is a struggle for Soviet power and against the party dictatorship. In his nervousness he declared, "this is a counterrevolution of a different type. It is extremely dangerous, no matter how insignificant their corrections in our policy seem at first glance."
And there is something to fear. The blow of the revolutionary people of Kronstadt is strong, and the ringleaders of the arrogant party feel that their autocracy has come to an end.
Lenin's unlimited nervousness slips through all through his speech on Kronstadt. The words "dangerous" and "danger" are repeated over and over. He says, "in order to end this petty bourgeois danger, incredibly dangerous to us since it doesn't unify the proletariat but divides it, we need maximum solidarity."
Yes, it has become necessary for the head Communist to tremble, and to call for "maximum solidarity," since not only the Communist dictatorship but also the party itself have shown signs of breaking.
Could Lenin have spoken the truth in general? Not so long ago at a discussion meeting about trade unions he said, "I am deathly fed up with this, and apart from my disease I would be glad to quit it all and run away wherever I could."
But his confederates do not allow him to run away. He is held as their prisoner, and must slander just like they do. And also, the party policy is such that its realization is prevented by Kronstadt, which is demanding not "free trade" but true Soviet power.
VAIN HOPES
The Petrograd Pravda for March 11th prints a letter from Zinoviev to the non-party comrades. This unrestrained boor expresses his sorrow that there have come to be few worker-Communists in Petrograd factories, and that therefore, "it is necessary to the Communists, come of it what may, to draw honest non-party workingmen and women into Soviet work." That Communists have become few in the factories is understandable; everyone flees from the party of traitors. It is also understandable that the chekists want to shut the non-party workers' mouths with every kind of truth and untruth, by involving them in join work.
This provocateur writes, "Let's, in an organized way, arrive at a systematic method of drawing non-party comrades to work." But what honest worker will join that gang of thieves, commissars and chekists? The workers well understand that these new gendarmes need to choke their grumbling with any concessions, to lull them from their vigilance, in order to squeeze them still stronger afterwards with their iron tongs. The workers see how they are revenging themselves on their non-party comrades in Kronstadt.
"Recently," Zinoviev sobs on, "there was a major misunderstanding between us and the Baltic Factory. But if the Baltic Factory were to be first to carry out the given plan, and showed an example to the others, then many mistakes would be forgiven it."
Here again speaks the provocateur. Of course, in those days the Communists assured us in their broadcasts to the Kronstadt workers that all was well in Peter, and that the Baltic factory was working. Now, suddenly, there are "major misunderstandings," and invitations to show an example "to other factories." Unrest has begun in other factories too. So when was Zinoviev trying to deceive us, then or now?
In order to obtain the Baltic workers for their use, the Communists promise them all the blessings of the world. "We will assign the workers to the jobs most important at the current moment: produce, heating, control over Soviet institutions and the like. We will give non-party workers the opportunity, through their representatives, to take the most active part in the purchase abroad, for gold, of produce for the Peter workers, in order to make it through the difficult months. We will put the question of the struggle with bureaucratism in our institutions on a practical footing. We will scold and criticize each other, and come to a full and fundamental understanding.
This is how sweetly Zinoviev sings, lulling the workers, drawing their attention away from the sound of the bombardment directed against their Kronstadt brothers. Why have the Communists been silent up to now? Why haven't they done this during their almost four year rule?
Very simply, they couldn't do this before, and they can't do it now either. We know the value of their promises, and not just promises but agreements (a bunch of paper). No, the worker won't sell his freedom and his brothers' blood for all the gold in the world. Let Zinoviev give up this empty fancy of, "coming to an understanding." Now, when the Kronstadt brothers have risen to the defense of true freedom, the workers can give the Communists only one answer. "Get out of power as quickly as possible, you butchers and provocateurs, while it's still possible to run away, and don't fool yourselves with vain hopes.
MEETING OF THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE
At the March 13th meeting of the Prov. Rev. Com., the report of the General Meeting of Communists imprisoned in the Naval Investigative Prison was heard. It included a request to the Prov. Rev. Com. to allow Zosimov, former Commissar of the Battleship Brigade, to leave for Moscow to attend the meeting of the regular session of the V.Ts.I.K. [All-Russian Central Executive Committee], in order to illuminate the true lay of matters in Kronstadt.
After an exchange of opinions and a discussion from all sides, the Prov. Rev. Com. decided to consider Zosimov's trip to Moscow unnecessary, since the truth about the events happening in Kronstadt should be well known to the government of the R.S.F.S.R. and the V.Ts.I.K. from our broadcasts. Because of their fear of the people's masses, the Communists have not been publicizing these.
Also, Zosimov's release might be interpreted by the government of the R.S.F.S.R. as a sign of weakness by the Prov. Rev. Com., and of a desire to come to a compromise. There can't even be talk of this, in view of the strongly expressed desire of the laboring masses of Kronstadt to forever liberate Russia from the power of the Communists.
HOW THEY LIE
We print word for word a group of notices printed in the March 11th number of Petrogradskaia Pravda.
Internal War in Kronstadt
At 8 P.M., the Committee of Defense received the following report from Tukhachevsky, Commander of the Army, in Oranienbaum. "Heavy small arms and machine gun fire is heard from Kronstadt. In Oranienbaum, columns are seen making an attack from Kronstadt toward the Mine Casting Workshops, which are located somewhat northeast of fort Konstantin. The attack is apparently being made either against fort Konstantin or against independent units which have risen against the Kronstadt White Guards, and are fortified in the region of the Mine Casting Workshops.
Fire in Kronstadt
During our capture of one of the numbered forts, a strong fire was noticed in Kronstadt. The town was cloaked in thick smoke.
An Attack by Cadets
On March 8th, one of the cadet detachments made an attack on one of the forts located on Kronstadt's northern side. The cadets, first stuck to their knees in snow, then splashing through the water which covers the ice in places, moved forward daringly and decisively. The officers, commissars and Communists were in front. Fire from the forts could not stop the attackers, despite cruel machine gun and artillery fire from the neighboring forts.
The fort was taken so swiftly, and so unexpectedly for its defenders, that they abandoned the fort leaving completely loaded weapons and a half-cooked meal. During our control of three of the mutineers' forts, a great quantity of cannon-wadding, 40 cases of munitions and other military property was captured in one of them.
More on the Leaders and Inspirers of the Mutiny
One of the deserters who left Kronstadt on the night of March 7th reports on the attitude and carriage of the White Guard officers as follows. "Their attitude is highly "playful." It doesn't, of course, bother them that they have started a bloody affair. They dream of the blessings which will fall to their part in the event that they control Petrograd. 'We will take Petrograd. We'll get no less than half a pood [1 pood is equal to 16.38 kg.] of gold to a mug. If it doesn''t come off, we'll go to Finland. They'll take us in there with pleasure,' these lords declare."
They feel like they are lords of the situation, and in fact they are. They carry themselves with the 'free seamen' like in the old, tsarist times. "The present tone is one of command, completely unlike with the Communists," the sailors say on this account. The only thing lacking is the gold epaulets.
We bring to the attention of the lord White Guard officers that they will hardly be successful in running off to Finland, and instead of gold they will each receive a nice portion of lead.
And Krasnaia Gazeta reports, "two sailors arriving in Reval report that 150 Bolsheviks have been killed in Kronstadt.
ORANIENBAUM. A store of provisions was destroyed by successful strikes of our artillery.
ORANIENBAUM. The sailors on the ships are isolated from the shore, and suppressed by the White officership. Increasingly, notices of approaching aid, printed several times a day in different forms, are spread about the town."
Even better is the report of Makhovik.
The Union of Printers has received the following letter in response to gifts taken by working women, members of the union, to the comrade soldiers who are defending the Peter proletarians from the White Guard adventurers.
TO THE UNION OF PRINTERS
Dear friends!
Universal thanks to you for the presents to your red units, who have already taken three forts. I send you greetings in all our names. Today was heated. I think that everything will be liquidated tomorrow.
Warm greetings to all unions.
DURMASHKIN, Secretary of the Politotdel of the Military District
3/9/21
This is how history is written. This is how the Communists think to hide the truth from the people with slander and deceit.
A LITTLE FARTHER
A little farther...
We are at the threshold.
Without stormy days
In bloody drunkeness
We move toward the goal--
The lighthouse is seen.
Manacles are off,
Armor is on
Ice is melted.
Roar of the storm
And banner of purple--
The people have risen.
From the gloom of the crypt,
Where we rotted blindly
Until these days
We went out to the light,
Set fire to the rocket—
The mutiny of fires.
A little farther...
We are at the threshold
Without stormy days
Passing the shoals
We move toward the goal
The lighthouse is seen.
GLEB VERZHBITSKY
YESHCHYE NYEMNOGO
Eshche nemnogo...
My u poroga
Bez burnykh dnei
V krovavom khmele
Idem my k tseli—
Mayak vidnei
Okovy sniaty
Odeti laty
Rastoplen led.
Rokochet buria
I stiag purpuria—
Vosstal narod.
Iz mraka sklepa,
Gde gnili slepo
Do etikh dnei
My vyshli k svetu,
Zazhgli raketu—
Miatezh ognei
Yeshche nemnogo...
My u poroga
Bez burnikh dnei
Minuia meli
Idem my k tseli—
Maiak vidnei.
GLEB VERZHBITSKY
THEY REFUTE THE SLANDER
The Helsingfors newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet reports:
"March 9th, a broadcast from Kronstadt was captured in Reval, saying that Kronstadt is not now in need of produce aid, and refuting the provocative rumors that it has turned to Finland for support."
WHY THE POPULACE HUNGERED
By direction of the Prov. Rev. Com., searches were carried out in the apartments of several commissars. Large reserves of produce were found in each of them. These were taken away, and given to the Produce Committee for distribution among the populace.
In this way, from the wife of commissar Ilyin (Shirokaia Street 19) were taken: 1 pood of meat, 1 pood of dried bread, 30 pounds of salt and 10 lb. of fish. The following was left her: 1 1/2 pood of flour, 4 poods of potatoes, 2 poods of liver, 15 pounds of meat and other produce. Items taken were: 12 pairs of new shoes, a jacket and a leather skirt. 2 jackets were left her.
From Dulin, Commissar of the Detachment of Special Purpose, the following were taken: 1 pood 9 lbs. of meat., 1 pood 28 lbs. of salt, 165 boxes of matches, 14 1/2 lbs. of loose tea, 1 pound of brick tea and 4 poods 33 lbs. of dried bread. Also taken were: buckwheat, oat flour, millet, wheat, wheat flour, soap, kerosine and even 1 pood 3 lbs. of nails.
Dulin was arrested.
Life was pretty good for the lord commissars.
FRATERNAL AID
The following donations have arrived for the warriors at the front: from E. Zavgorodin, a two day ration of bread and a pack of makhorka; from S. Ivanov, a stoker on the Sevastopol, a soldier''s overcoat; from O. Tsimmerman, a woman employee of the Rev. Com., cigarettes; from S. Putilin, one pair of boots; from A.L., clerk of the Port Chemical Laboratory, one pair of boots.
ARISE, REPRESSED!
It is now three years that the populace of Soviet Russia has languished under the Communist yoke. These arrogant beasts' bloodthirsty leaders have pitilessly poured, and pour now, the blood of the laborers. The servitors of the Communist autocracy, hiding under the traitorous mask, "Power of the Laboring People," have deceived, and try to still deceive, the workers and peasants with their lying slanderous speeches. And besides that, the blood of deceived toilers pours on endless fronts.
Everyone knows how they take almost the last chicken from a soldier's family, but the fattened commissars, having fortified themselves with a solid ration, look out for themselves, and do their stinking business in the rear. They yell from their bloody scaffolds, "all land to the peasants, and the factories and plants to the workers." But at the same time, the Communists have built communal farms, occupying the best pieces of land, and put a still heavier and stronger land-owner on the neck of the most impoverished peasant.
The worker has become a night animal instead of a factory owner. He cannot work where he wants, and cannot refuse to work beyond his strength. Anyone who speaks a word of truth they shoot, leave in prison to rot, or torture in the Communist torture chambers.
Worker and peasant, languishing under the Bolshevik yoke, it is time for you to wake from your lethargy! Form true Soviets.
Look, with one blow, revolutionary Kronstadt has knocked down the stranglers of the will of the laboring people. Power has truly passed into the hands of the laborers.
When the rebellious proletariat demanded the liberation of its brothers who were languishing in the prisons, bloody Trotsky opened fire on Red Kronstadt. Having dressed deceived soldiers in white shrouds, he sent them with rifles in their hands to strangle our truth. But truth is not for Trotsky to strangle. All laboring Russia and all the world knows that we struggle for the laborers'' liberation from the despotic power of the usurper Communists.
All the world knows that Kronstadt can't bear to listen anymore to the moans of its repressed and ruined brothers. However Trotsky might try to strangle the free idea of Kronstadt, he will soon be forced to dress himself in the same white shroud in which he dressed the unfortunate soldiers whom he deceived and drove out with machine guns to die without glory on the ice at the approaches to Kronstadt.
We have decided to be victorious or to die under the ruins of glorious Kronstadt. May we be judged by the workers of the world. We stand firmly at our posts, and having raised the banner of liberty, we are certain of victory.
Long live the Soviets!
Damnation to the stranglers of liberty, the Communists!
seaman KOPTELOV
APPEAL TO WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND SAILORS
On March 2nd, we, the people of Kronstadt, threw off the damned Communist yoke and raised the red flag of the Third Revolution of Laborers.
Soldiers, seamen and workers, revolutionary Kronstadt calls you. We know that they lead you into delusion and don't tell the truth about events here, where we are all ready to give our lives for the holy cause of liberating the worker and peasant. They try to convince you that white generals and priests are with us. In order to put an end to this once and for all, we bring to your attention that the Provisional Revolutionary Committee consists of the following fifteen members.
1. Petrichenko--a senior clerk on the battleship Petropavlovsk;
2. Yakovenko--a telephone operator at the Kronstadt Regional Communications Service;
3. Ososov--a machinist on the battleship Sevastopol;
4. Arkhipov--a machinist foreman;
5. Perepelkin--an electrician on the battleship Sevastopol;
6. Parushev--an electrician foreman on the battleship Petropavlosk;
7. Kupolov--a senior doctor's assistant;
8. Vershinin--a seaman/combatant on the battleship Sevastopol;
9. Tukin--an artisan in the Electro-Mechanical Factory;
10. Romanenko--a watchman in the repair docks;
11. Oreshin--Director of the Third Labor School;
12. Valk--an artisan in the Sawmill;
13. Pavlov--a worker in the Mine Workshops;
14. Boikov--Director of the Transport String at the Admin. of Construction of the Fortress;
15. Kilgast--an ocean navigator.
These are our generals: the Brusilovs, Kamenevs and the rest, and it is the gendarmes Trotsky and Zinoviev who hide the truth from you. Comrades, look about and see what they have done to you, what they are doing to your wives, brothers and children. Are you really going to suffer and perish under the yoke of the oppressors?
DOWN WITH COMMISSAROCRACY!
Capturing power, the Communist Party promised you all the blessings of the laboring masses. And what do we see in fact? Three years ago they told us, "When you want, you can recall your representatives. You can newly elect the Soviets." But when we, the people of Kronstadt, called for new elections to the Soviets, free of party pressure, Trotsky the newly appeared Trepov gave the order, "don't spare the bullets."
Soldiers, you see how valuable your lives are to the Communists. They send you across the ice barehanded to take Red Kronstadt, stronghold of the Laboring Revolution. They send you to take impregnable forts and ships, whose armor twelve inch shells can't pierce.
What treachery!
We called for a delegation of Petrograd toilers to be sent, so that you might learn what kind of generals are with us, and who commands us. But there is no such delegation. The Communists fear that a delegation would learn the truth and tell it to you. They tremble, feeling the earth shake under them.
But the hour has rung. Off dirty paws, stained with the blood of our brothers and fathers! The laborers' spirit of freedom is still strong. They won't let the vampire Communists enslave them again, sucking out the last drop of blood from the tortured proletariat.
Toiler, did you really overthrow tsarism and throw down Kerensky in order to put the Maliuta Skuratov oprichniks, with Fieldmarshal Trotsky in the lead, on your own neck?
No! A thousand times no!
The work hardened hand is heavy, and the base oppressors who have destroyed millions of toilers' lives to capture power will not withstand it.
Damnation to the hated Communist yoke!
Down with the party yoke!
Long live the power of workers and peasants!
Long live freely elected Soviets!
THE PROVISIONAL REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE OF KRONSTADT
Kronstadt, March 13th, 1921
A RESOLUTION
Passed March 12th by the General Meeting of soldiers of the Transport String of the Naval Fortress of Kronstadt.
We, the soldiers of the Transport String of the Naval Fortress of Kronstadt, having listened with attention to the report of Comrade Perepelkin, member of the Prov. Rev. Com., about the current moment, find all the actions and measures taken by the Prov. Rev. Com. to be correct, and appropriate for the state of war.
We give our entire support to the defense of the interests of the laboring peasantry and workers, and detach 50 people from our crew to carry out combat service under the complete command of the Prov. Rev. Com. This will not sap the ability of the Transport String to do special urgent work. At the first call by the Prov. Rev. Com., we will all answer as one, and will be ready to go any time of day or night.
Long live the Revolutionary Committee of Kronstadt!
Long live the revolutionary seamen, soldiers and workers of Kronstadt!
Down with commissarocracy!
Down with the predatory beast Trotsky!
FEDOROV, President of the Assembly
MAIER, member A. IVANOV, Secretary
LEAVING THE PARTY
All those leaving the ranks of the R.C.P. are directed to turn in their party booklets and identifications to their electoral troikas. Those leaving the party in the future and giving declarations are directed to do so right now.
Declarations of departure from the R.C.P. arrive unceasingly at the editorial offices, but in view of their great quantity and the insufficiency of space, the editors are unable to publish them immediately, and will include them as possible in following editions of the newspaper.
In December of 1919, when Yudenich was approaching Petrograd, Sotnikov, former Aide to the Commissar of Construction of the Fortress, gathered all the comrades of fort Krasnoarmeiskii. After a lying speech, he ordered all the non-party comrades to choose one of two things, either the party or the left flank, where the 55 people executed by the butcher Razin in the Krasnogorsk events were buried. Under such a threat, I was forced to become a member of the R.C.P.
But as the saying goes, "you won't be nice by force." Even though I was counted on paper as being in the R.C.P., in spirit it wasn't so.
In 1920, I was thrown behind bars by the beast Sitnikov [sic] because I dared to ask the truth, why the Finns were bringing every possible kind of produce over the border to lord Gromov, the little Kronstadt tsar.
On leaving prison, I couldn't flee the party since everything was under surveillance. But at last there has come a free time, when the yoke of commissarocracy has fallen, and I may freely stand up in the ranks of free workers and peasants.
The Communists told us that they were put in power by the people, and that they stand for the people. But who really put them in power? They told us that it is necessary to endure, and to carry on through hunger and cold for the good of our past achievements. But just as soon as these "apostles" had returned to their homes, everything appeared there, except birds' milk.
Not so long ago they reminded us of the year 1905, when the hungry workers who went to ask Nikolai for bread were fed with lead. But look what they themselves gave the workers when they dared to ask for bread. They treat them to bullets, prisons and so on. It has become several times worse than under Nikolai.
After the October Revolution, all these "apostles" with the souls of traitors stripped everyone on the sidewalks of their fur coats, or stole produce down to the very crumbs if they found someone with it. But now look at these thieves. Each of them has several fur coats, all their hands are hung about with gold, and their suitcases are stuffed with toys from Nikolai's time, produce and so on.
And all the same such scoundrels yelled, and still yell, that they are struggling for the freedom which they are strangling with bullets and prisons.
And so comrades, I am quitting this bloody traitorous party, and joyfully entering into your free ranks.
Long live the free peasant and worker!
V. IAKOVLEV, sldr. of the Training Crew of the 4th Division
I make this declaration to the Provisional Revolutionary Committee and the citizens of the town of Kronstadt so that you would not consider me to be a sympathizer with the Communists. I have been on guard of the just, Civilian Court since the 1st Revolution, as the People's Judge who is elected independent of party membership. Due to the distortion of the fundamental declaration of the Republic Constitution by the Communist Party, in 1921 I was forced to secure "political reliability" and support in my struggle for the people's citizens' rights against the arbitrary rule of the chekists and other oprichniks, in order to have the strength to repulse the dominance of criminal Communists over individual private citizens who came for legal help.
Now, when this dominance threatens the entire people's mass with bloody horrors, and comes from the central Communist authorities, I am leaving the party. It has not justified my faith, and I want to be in the ranks of the first warriors of the 3rd Revolution.
ALLIK, People's Judge of the Third District of the Town of Kronstadt
NUMBER 13
Tuesday, March 15th, 1921
MANDATORY DECLARATION
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF ADMINISTRATION
In view of the approaching thaw, due to which water has formed on the streets, I direct all UCHKOMS to see to enlisting citizens to work on cleaning ice from the sidewalks, and also cleaning the drainage gratings in the middle of the street.
Cleaning is to take place March 15th, in the morning.
KASUKHIN, Assistant Director of the Department of Administration
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
from 24:00, March 13th through 12:00, March 14th
Over the course of the night, the adversary's parties tried to attack twice, but were repulsed by our fire. After 4 A.M., there was a calm on the front.
from 12:00 until 24:00
About 13:00 the adversary began artillery fire, to which our artillery gave an energetic response. Firing continued with pauses until 18:30, after which a calm set in.
The adversary's airplanes did not fly during the entire day.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Military Revolutionary Committee
SOLOVIANOV, Head of the Defense
THE TRADING HOUSE OF LENIN, TROTSKY AND CO.
The trading house of Lenin, Trotsky and Co. has done well. The criminal, autocratic policies of the ruling Communist Party have led Soviet Russia into the abyss of beggary and ruin.
Enough of this, it's time to rest. But apparently the toilers still haven't spilled enough blood and tears. This is a moment of historic battle, daringly raised by Revolutionary Kronstadt for the rights of the laboring people which have been desecrated and trampled by the Communists. And now the flock of ravens has flown together for its 10th Party Congress, and is reaching agreements on how to continue their Cain-like business even more slyly and effectively.
Their shamelessness is complete. They speak of concessions with complete calm. They have become used to it. Lenin even talks like this, "We have started to develop a beginning for concessions. The degree to which this will be successful doesn't depend on us, but we must achieve it." He further admits that the Bolsheviks have brought Soviet Russia to ruin, "for we cannot reconstruct the country without technology from abroad, to somewhat catch up with other countries in economic terms. The situation has required us to buy abroad not only machines, but also coal, which we have much of."
Lenin consoles us, "Such sacrifices will be necessary in the future also, in obtaining items of broad use, and for the collective farms."
Where is the economy made right, for the good of which the worker was turned into a slave in a bureaucratic factory and the laboring peasantry into hired hands on Soviet farms?!
But this is still not enough. Lenin, talking about agriculture, promises even more "blessings," under the further "ownership" of the Communists, as he himself puts it. "And if it is possible to sometimes reestablish large scale farming and industry, then it will only be by the path of placing new sacrifices on any producer, giving him nothing."
That is the kind of "blessing" which the head of the Bolsheviks promises to all who will continue to submissively carry the yoke of commissarocracy. The peasant was right who said at the Eighth Congress of Soviets, "everything's going all right, only... land's ours, but grain's yours; water's ours, but fish's yours; forest's ours, but the wood's yours."
But the toiler doesn't have to worry. Lenin promises, "to make a number of concessions to the smallholder, to give him known limits of a free economy." Like the old "kind" landowner, he intends to make a few petty concessions in order to squeeze even harder later with the tongs of party dictatorship. This is clearly visible from the phrase, "of course, you won't achieve it without compulsion, for the country is terribly impoverished and tired."
It's clear. You can take even the last shirt from the beggar.
The mission of peaceful construction Lenin understands to be, "with concessions at the top and taxes at the bottom."
WHAT THE COMMUNE GAVE
"Comrades, we will build a beautiful new life," the Communists said and wrote. "We will destroy the entire world of oppression, and build a bright Socialist heaven," they sang to the people.
But what in fact came of it? All the best houses and apartments are taken by departments and subdepartments, and their bureaucrats have set themselves up spaciously, comfortably and warmly. The number of available apartments was reduced, and workers live in the very same places where they lived before, just more run-down and more crowded.
The houses are reaching old age, and the stoves are almost ruined. Broken windows aren't fixed. Roofs are bursting and just about to begin leaking. Fences are strewn about. Waterpipes are half ruined. Toilets don't work. Apartments are flooded with refuse. Citizens see to their needs in strangers' courtyards. Stairways are unlit and filthy. Courtyards are like pigsties. Garbage cans and cesspools are overfilled. The streets are dirty; the sidewalks haven't been cleared and slippery. It's dangerous to walk.
In order to receive an apartment it is necessary to have pull in the housing department; otherwise, don't even think about it. Only the select have spacious and comfortable apartments.
The matter of food is even worse. Irresponsible and incapable workers have ruined hundreds of thousands of food items. They distribute nothing but frozen potatoes. Meat is rotten in spring and summer. They didn't used to give to swine what citizens have received from the builders of "heavenly" life.
Honest Soviet fish (herring) saved the day, but recently there isn't even that.
In order to receive these pathetic scraps it was necessary to serve hours at the fronts.
Soviet stores turned out to be worse than the factory stores of unpleasant memory, where the owner-manufacturers dumped every kind of trash, and the enslaved workers couldn't say a word.
In order to destroy home life, our rulers introduced communal cafeterias... And what came of it?
The food there was even worse! Produce was plundered, and the citizens were given the remains. Children's food was somewhat better. But what was given to the children was still not enough, and most important, there wasn't enough milk. In their time, the Communists took all the milk cattle from the laboring populace to their farms. Half they destroyed. Milk from the surviving cattle went first to administrators and employees, and only the scraps to the children.
But the worst of all was the clothing and shoe situation. People wore only what was stored away earlier. If anything came in for distribution, then it was very little. (Now, for example, one of the unions is issuing buttons, and they have to make it 1 1/2 buttons per person. Isn't it funny?) Shoes were especially bad. The path to heaven may be short, but all the same you won't get there without soles on your shoes.
There were, however, channels in which all that was needed flowed freely. People close to the Communist Party, and those with power, had everything. They had their own cafeteria, special rations, and a special orders table for their service, distributing blessings by the good will of a woman commissar.
But people knew that the "commune" sapped, and in the end destroyed, productive labor. Any inclination and interest to work fell away. Cobblers, tailors, water carriers and others who had earlier worked by handicraft, quit and went away, someone here and someone there. They became port guards and watchmen, joined the ranks of the departmental workers, and so on.
This is the heaven which the Bolsheviks took on themselves to build. In place of the former regime there arose a new regime of excess, vileness, "comradeship," selfishness, thievery and speculation. It is a horrible regime, where it's necessary to hold out your hand to the authorities for every little piece of bread and every button. It's a regime where you don't even own yourself, and there's no way to be your own master. It's a regime of slavery and humiliation.
This is the kind of hell we lived in for three years. But that was still just the blossoms, and we will rescue ourselves from the berries.
EVENTS IN PETROGRAD
Through March 12th
A state of siege has been declared. Guards on the bridges have been increased. Guard posts have been placed at busy crossings, controlling the movement of automobiles and horses. Movement is forbidden after 9 P.M. The theaters are closed.
--The mood of the workers is one of sympathy toward the people of Kronstadt. The workers are expectant. The electrical station and water supply work industriously. All other factories are either striking or "Italianing" [sit-down striking, after the form of Italian labor protestors].
--The mood of the army units is not favorable to the authorities. Therefore they aren't sent to the front, but are held in barracks and not issued weapons. Due to the danger of active interference by the sailors, a partial transfer has been begun to the Black Sea. To the front are sent exclusively cadets, and independent units quickly thrown together from members of regional and suburban soviets.
--Produce situation. The entire amount on hand in the Petrograd storehouses at the beginning of March amounted to 23,000 poods (a meaningful part being frozen meat). Of that, 22,000 poods have now been requisitioned for the needs of the Petrograd garrison; 1000 poods are left for high Soviet employees. There are no reserves for the populace. The steam grainmill Mordukha stands empty.
--Hostage arrests are being carried out in Petrograd and its surrounding areas. About 20,000 persons have been arrested by now. (The figure is not confirmed.)
--The March 4th session of the Petrosoviet. The Kronstadt events are the main issue of the day. Zinoviev calls for the presentation of two ultimatums: 1) to the people of Kronstadt, 2) to the striking Petrograd factories, and the Baltic in particular. (After a number of speakers testified, the second ultimatum was not presented.) By far the most conspicuous speech was that of Filippov. Its contents in short: "Having fought in the July and October days of 1917 for the dictatorship of the working class, we got a dictatorship of the ruling party." After Filippov's speech, time was limited to seven minutes, and about 20 speakers were deprived of speech. None the less, seaman Emelianov was able to read the Kronstadt resolution. The disorders among the Petrograd seaman and the unsucessful attack on [fort] Totleben were explained with factual reports.
--Wounded from the Kronstadt front are beginning to arrive in Petrograd. Many of them are self inflicted. For example, of 100 people wounded in Sestroretsk, 60 were self inflicted.
--On the 10th, more than 100 people from the Naval Academy refused to go to the front. They were sent to the tribunal [court].
A SMALL SATIRE
In the empire Eresefeser [RSFSR]
There once appeared a strange SR
(a spy also, and Menshevik)
Who spoke with tongue both spry and quick,
And a former priest (and general)
Who quickly built a fine scandal.
Very nicely lived the folk:
In the baths washed without soap,
Warmed in winter without wood,
And fattened up on fatless food.
Never rushing, in good measure,
Folks would eat their frozen taters,
And with tasty "Soviet ham"
Indulge themselves, just now and then.
For a pair of wooden soles,
Three whole years they worked their doles,
Though tied in knots like broken shoots,
They never did obtain the boots...
Life, that is, flowed beautifully,
Without grumbling, patiently.
But the terrible dream is broken,
Entire, the garrison has woken,
Holding meetings, shouting solutions,
Scribbling up resolutions.
Then arrived himself Kalinin,
Tongue as soft and slick as linen,
He sang to them like honeyed wine,
But success he didn't find.
Every heart was set aflame,
And the poor Communards, what a shame...
The few remaining "hearty souls,"
Were just like crabs upon the shoals,
And running heels were all that was seen,
Of those from the feared Cheka machine.
Fearing terrible retribution,
Flight's the commissar's solution,
But the politruk [head of the politotdel] didn't have the chance,
And now he sits without his pants,
Right there down in the old cell block,
With the Communists, a regular flock.
And they've even, scandal of all scandals,
Dressed themselves in plain bast sandals.
Gotten all upset and glum,
Trotsky sends an ultimatum,
"If this disorder you don't douse,
Then, like a bunch of foolish grouse,
A loyal host having gathered round,
I'll give the order to shoot you down."
But our boys, firm and plucky,
Select a Committee and revtroiki,
Shoulder to shoulder now they sit,
Before a fire they have lit...
So wait a bit, for the moment when,
The "mighty leaders" make their ends,
Like little bugs, on weapon pins.
HOW THEY LIE
Krasnaia Gazeta reports in the March 12th edition:
--Oranienbaum, 11th. There are confirmed reports that there is a rebellion by seamen in Kronstadt.
--Oranienbaum, 12th. Yesterday, individuals were noticed making their way across the ice from Kronstadt to the Finnish shore. It was also noticed that crossings were being made from Finland to Kronstadt. This all points to an undoubtable connection with Finland.
--Oranienbaum, 12th. Red pilots who were over Kronstadt yesterday report that there are almost no people to be seen in the streets. There are no guards or communications. Also, no communication with Finland is visible.
--Oranienbaum, 11th. Deserters from Kronstadt report that the sailors' mood is one of demoralization. Faith in the sailors by the mutiny leaders has fallen so low that they are no longer allowed to service the artillery. The artillery is serviced exclusively by officers, in whose hands actual power is located. The sailors have been removed from almost all positions.
Firing in Kronstadt
By reports received today, frequent small arms and machine gun fire is occurring in Kronstadt. This gives basis to think that there is an uprising in Kronstadt.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE FEEDING OF HORSES
The besieged condition of the town of Kronstadt forces our produce organs to widely use stores of buckwheat and millet husks and oat chaff for foraging horses. Feeding horses with substitutes can support the horse and protect the transport we need if they are used especially skillfully. Horses eat husks and chaff badly; they often sicken, and it is not rare for them to die. In order that this doesn't happen, and that the noted substitutes will be useful to us, the following is recommended:
1. Feeding horses with substitutes: begin using buckwheat and millet husks and oat chaff immediately, while stores of other forage are still not exhausted. Changing one feed for another in a horse's ration requires time. The horse must be continuously prepared and accustomed to the new feed.
2. Change the horse over to feeding on hulls and chaff by degrees, starting the daily ration with 1/2, and only after several days (usually two weeks) bringing it to the standard norm. The horse can't forget oats and take to hulls quickly, and will be hungry and nervous for a long time. Giving hulls immediately and in large quantity, without preparation, will necessarily bring a dangerous colic in the horse.
3. Do not give dry hulls and chaff. The horse eats them badly in such a form, and the dust which flies up irritates the horse's nose and throat and brings out a cough in the horse. Before giving the chaff and hulls to the horse, it is absolutely necessary to moisten them in water for 12-18 hours, or to steam them with boiling water. It is possible to use the method of Ôself-warming', or fermentation, of the hulls and chaff. That is done like this: Dig a pit of the size necessary, line it with boards, and divide it into 4 sections with a partition. This is done because the fermentation of the chaff usually takes 3 days, and therefore if there are 4 sections it is possible to have a self-fermenting fresh feed every day, readily eaten by horses. Before lining the pit, the hulls and chaff are usually moistened with not particularly cold water, and then are pressed thickly into the pit. A bit of hay dust quickens the fermentation process, and a small amount of salt improves the taste. The size of the pit is dependant on the daily demand for chaff; 1 cubic arshin [1 arshin is equal to .71 meters] gives around 100 pounds of self-fermented chaff.
4. It is necessary to shake the feed chaff and husks through a sifter to remove earth and small stones, for if these are added, the horse gets a sore mouth, eats it badly and often sickens.
5. Don't give the horse clay or moldy husks and chaff in its feed. When such substitutes are used in case of special need, it is absolutely necessary to add a small quantity of salt to the feed.
6. It is good to give chaff and husks in mixture with other feed, with added oats, hay dust, twigs and a small quantity of salt.
7. As possible, don't give the horse chaff and hulls on an empty stomach. Best of all in the morning is to give the horse a little hay, and only then chaff and husks.
8. Every 2-3 days, add some soda with wood charcoal to the chaff and husks. This will protect the horse from sickness.
9. When feeding the horse with substitutes, don't burden it with work. Don't keep it wet and in the wind. Increase the horse's supervision and care.
By following all the offered rules, you will meaningfully lighten the effect of feed substitutes on the horse, and help us to preserve it for our bright future, when economy and labor will develop without the threat of cannons, and without substitutes for the people's will and power.
The veterinary doctor
NEWS FROM PETROGRAD
In Petrograd, the entire militia has been placed on a barracks footing, and is carrying out increased work to protect the city, the electrical station, train stations, factories and other sites. As regards the militia women, they are carrying out guard duties protecting institutions and factories. Thus, on guard of the Putilovsky Factory there are now exclusively women on duty.
The trial court of the Petrograd Revolutionary Military Tribunal heard the matter of Mikhail Iakovlevich Bulanov, sldr. of "I" Battalion, who was accused of leaving his battalion without permission while it was moving into attack, and of spreading rumors which might have brought sedition and panic in the soldiers' ranks.
Bulanov refused to fight against his brother Kronstadters. The tribunal sentenced M. Ia. Bulanov, 20, to execution. The sentence was carried into fulfillment.
FRATERNAL AID
The following donations have arrived for the defenders of the approaches to Kronstadt: From I. Pervushin, 1/2 lb. of makhorka and 2 boxes of matches; from Comrade Arkhipov, a pair of boots; from Comrade Kiselnikov, 3 packs of cigarettes, 3 boxes of matches and 1 pair of Russian high boots.
From Onisimov, 1 pair of old boots, 1 pair of underwear, 2 tobacco pouches, 1/4 lb. of makhorka and 2 boxes of matches; from Tsiplenkov, 1 pair of green cloth trousers and 1/2 lb. of makhorka; from Ignatiev, 1 pair of boots, 3/8 lb. of makhorka and 2 boxes of matches; from Mikhailov, 1 pair of underwear, 1 seaman's duck blouse and 3/8 lb. of makhorka; from Bekker 1 pair of boots, 3/8 lb. of makhorka and 1 box of matches; from Yakushkin, 1/4 lb. of first quality tobacco; from Gurov, 1/4 lb. of makhorka; from Riumin, 1 pair of Russian uniform boots and 3/8 lb. of makhorka; from Grigoriev, 1 pair of boots; from Fadeev, 1/8 lb. of makhorka; from Bobyliev, 1 pair of trousers, 1 sailor's flannel blouse, 1 service cap, and 1/8 lb. of makhorka; from Veidekis, 1 pair of Russian boots and 1/4 lb. of tobacco; from Stogov, 1 pair of underwear, 1 1/2 lb. of cereals and 1 can of pickled cabbage; from Bomkov, 1 pair of old boots and 1 quilted skirt; from Komarov, 1/4 lb. of makhorka and 1 box of matches; from Okosov, 1/8 lb. of makhorka; from Scherbakov, 1/8 lb. of makhorka; from Kulgas, 1/8 lb. of makhorka; from Romanov, 1/4 lb. of makhorka and 1 box of matches.
APPORTIONMENT
For issue to the garrison units and town residents of the fortress of Kronstadt.
A. Bread issue to army units, the fleet and workers from March 15th through 21st inclusive.
1. 1/2 lb. of bread or 1/4 pound of biscuit a day. 2. 1/4 lb. of canned meat a day. 3. 3/8 pound of meat a day.
To the civilian populace:
To children of series A.
1. A 1 pound tin of canned milk through April 1st. 2. 2 lbs. of flour through April 1st. 3. 1 lb. of wildfowl through April 1st. 4. 3 eggs through April 1st.
To children of series B.
1. Half a pound of barley a day. 2. A quarter pound of wildfowl a day. 3. A quarter pound of meat a day. 4. A quarter pound of cheese through April first.
To children of series C.
1. A half pound of barley a day. 2. A half pound of meat a day. 3. 1 pound of caviar, one time.
To adults of letter B.
1. 1 pound of oats a day. 2. 3/8 lb. of meat a day. 3. One pound of caviar, with a quarter pound one time.
Besides this, to children of all series is additionally issued a quarter lb. of table butter, and a half pound of sugar, and to adults a quarter pound of salted butter, and a half pound of sugar.
PETRICHENKO, President of the Rev. Com.
SOLOVIANOV, Head of the Defense of the Fortress of Kronstadt
PRODUCE
FROM GORPRODKOM
It is announced that bread for March 14th was issued from stores NoNo 1, 4, 25, 11, 12, 14, 19 and 31. Those who didn't receive any are directed to receive it today at those same stores.
For March 15th, a half pound of bread is issued by adult cards of letter A for bread coupon No 18.
--Today, 3 lbs. of oats are issued by adult B cards for bread coupon No 22, counted against the bread norm for March 15th, 16th and 17th.
--3 pounds of barley is issued by children's B and C cards, counted against the bread norm for the six days from March 15th through 20th: by B cards for bread coupon No 12, and C for bread coupon No 22.
Issue of the declared produce will take place for 4 days.
Issue of remaining produce counted against the bread norm will be announced specially.
Due to the new allotment, today is the last day for all old issues, announced before March 14th, with the exception of meat. The last day of meat issue is Wednesday, 3/16.
TUKIN, President of the Administration of Gorprodkom
NOTICES
--The Committee of the Union of Metal Workers notifies comrade workers that cigarette papers and "Baker" brand powder are issued to members from the union store.
--A purse with the documents of citizen Natalia Bunakova has been lost. Personal identification and a night pass are in it.
--The Administration of the Union of Workers in Education and Socialist Culture informs that there will be a General Meeting of members of the union at 4 P.M. on March 15th at the 3rd Labor School. Attendance is mandatory.
--Personal identification No 44 in the name of seaman M. Kreinin has been lost. Please consider it invalid.
ANNOUNCEMENT
All military units, worker's associations and institutions can receive 'Izvestiia of the Revolutionary Committee' and pamphlets at Sevtsentropechat, in accordance with the worked out norm.
NUMBER 14
Wednesday, March 16th, 1921
Today, March 16th, at 4 P.M., after a burial service in the Naval Cathedral,
THE FIRST SACRIFICES IN THE STRUGGLE
FOR FREEDOM OF THE LABORERS
will be committeed to earth in a fraternal grave on Revolution Square.
Killed on March 8th: Aleksandr Kapralov, Mikhail Aleksandrov,
Aleksandr Danilov, Zakhar Klimenkov, Stepan Mischenko, and one worker and four soldiers whose names have not been discovered.
Died from wounds: Foma Shaposhnikov, Petr Fedorov, Iakov Arkhipov,
Semen Drozdov, Feodosii Khatko, Sergei Nechaev, Mikhail Bystrov,
Aleksandr Pospelov, Ivan Pakhtalov and Stepan Kevshin.
SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS
from 24:00, March 14th through 12:00, March 15th
Around 6 A.M., the adversary's intelligence made an attempt to approach our guard line, but was dispersed by fire. Prisoners were taken by us.
Around 11 A.M., the adversary began occasional artillery fire.
for the time from 12:00 noon until 12:00 midnight, March 15th
From 2 P.M. on, there was occasional artillery firing. Around 5 P.M., firing ceased. After 6:30 P.M., the enemy apparatuses [airplanes] carried out three raids. One bomb was thrown, but didn't cause any harm. The apparatuses flew away after the very first shots by our anti-aircraft batteries.
OSOSOV, Vice President of the Prov. Rev. Com.
SOLOVIANOV, Head of the Defense
SOCIALISM IN QUOTES
Carrying out the October Revolution, the seamen, soldiers, workers and peasant spilled their blood for Soviet power, for the construction of a Republic of labor.
The Communist Party well understood the mood of the masses. Having written deceitful slogans which stirred the masses on its banner, it drew them along behind itself, and promised to bring them to a bright Kingdom of Socialism which only the Bolsheviks could build.
Naturally, limitless joy filled the workers and peasants. "At last, slavery under the yoke of land owners and capitalists would pass into the realm of legend," they thought. It seemed that the time of free labor on the land and in the factories had come. It seemed that all power had passed into the laborers' hands.
The children of the laboring people were drawn into the party's ranks by sly propaganda, and held there with the chain of severe discipline. Feeling their strength, the Communists first removed from power the socialists of other movements. Then they shoved the workers and peasants themselves from the helm of the ship of state. At the same time, they continued to rule the country in their name.
The Communists exchanged the stolen power for the authority of commissars, and for arbitrary rule over the body and soul of the citizens of Soviet Russia. Contrary to common sense, and in defiance of the will of the laborers, there began the persistent construction of bureaucratic socialism with its slaves, instead of a free kingdom of labor.
Having let production fall into disarray under "workers' control," the Bolsheviks carried out nationalization of the plants and factories. From a slave of the capitalist, the worker became a slave of the bureaucratic institutions. Even that became too little. They planned to bring in the Taylor sweat shop system.
The entire laboring peasantry was counted with the kulaks, declared an enemy of the people. The enterprising Communists occupied themselves with destruction, and took to setting up Soviet farms, the estates of a new land owner, the state. That is what the peasantry received under Bolshevik socialism instead of free labor with liberated land.
In exchange for grain requisitioned almost bare, and cows and horses taken away, there were Cheka raids and executions. There's a good exchange of products in the labor state: in exchange for bread, lead and bayonets.
A citizen's life became impossibly boring and bureaucratic. It was life drawn by the powers that be. Instead of a free development of personality and a free laboring life, there arose a completely unprecedented slavery. Any free thought, any fair criticism of the actions of the criminal rulers was made a crime, punishable by imprisonment, and not rarely even by execution.
The death sentence, a desecration of human dignity, began to flourish "in the socialist fatherland." This is that bright Kingdom of Socialism which the Communist Party brought us to. We have received bureaucratic socialism with Soviets full of bureaucrats, who obediently vote by the orders of a committee of the party of infallable commissars.
The slogan, "he who doesn't work, doesn't eat," was turned inside out under the new, "Soviet" order to be, "all for the commissars." And for the workers, peasants and laboring intelligentsia there remained labor, continuous and unenlightening, in prisonlike conditions.
It became unbearable, and Revolutionary Kronstadt first broke the manacles, and broke the prison bars, fighting for Socialism of another kind. It is fighting for a laboring Soviet Republic, where the producer will find himself the fully empowered master and commander of the produce of his own labor.
IN POWERLESS SPITE
In the proud knowledge of its power and with the strong desire to rebuild desecrated freedoms, Kronstadt threw off the Communist yoke. It refused to pay tribute in the lives, fortunes and welfare of its people to a bunch of lunatics.
Tortured Russia was forced to bear the nightmare of the All-Russian Cheka, the rivers of blood shed by innocents, sobs and moans in the village hut, thefts and oppressions in the cities, and strangling of any thought or any living word, all for the good of the unbothered existence of the Kremlin khans.
But at the same time, these sufferings increased the fortress' strengths ten fold from the very first moment of the formation of the Prov. Rev. Com. When Kronstadt, that veteran of freedom, answered the first shot of the socialist autocrats, there was a feeling as if along with a round from a gun barrel there shot out indignation and revulsion. It was felt that there will not be an end to this revulsion until the time when the chains of "Communist freedom" which entangle the laboring people have been torn away.
Kronstadt, in calm certainty that it was correct, said to its enemies, "come and get it." The jackals of the Communist pack bared their teeth, the leaders began to howl, and the ravens, smelling the kill beforehand, flew down from all sides to the Oranienbaum and Sestroretsk shores.
Loyal communards by good will, and the remaining soldiers deceived with tales of what is being created here and driven with machine guns, were expected to obtain the head of grey Kronstadt for the red headquarters at Krasnoflotskii in two shakes, as it was said in Petrogradskaia Pravda.
The quick accounting was not successful. Neither tsarist methods of repression using contemporary junker-cadets, nor the napoleonic heads of the central commands of all the fronts could help the situation.
In powerless spite, the jackals ran away with their tails between their legs. The ravens have flown off with wild croaking to the familiar nests of their secret police, sowing slander and lies in their Communist press, and shooting or putting in prison those who didn't want and do not want to believe in Petrogradskaia Pravda.
Powerless spite: to hide the truth of free Kronstadt from you at the price of blood and lies.
Every new shot from the fortress brings closer the liberation of all the country's laborers from the shameful Communist yoke.
THE REVTROIKA OF THE AIR DEFENSE
RED WREATH FOR A WARRIORS' GRAVE
Today, one more grave mound rose on Kronstadt's Anchor Square. The beginnings of the 3rd Revolution were laid in this square, and in it will be committed to earth the first warrior heroes for its slogans.
Brothers in spirit, they will lie in a fraternal grave. Twenty red coffins with our defenders' bodies will be lowered into the earth. These red coffins are the symbol the the blood spilled in battle for the good of the laborers, and a symbol of the fire of Revolution, sweeping from its path all who raise their hand against the will of the laboring people, and lighting the torch of freedom.
Therefore, may their murderers know that in burying our red heroes, we have also dug a grave for them. We will bury the butchers there without a feeling of sorrow or sadness, but with damnation.
LEND A HAND, BROTHERS, AND FORWARD FOR FREEDOM!
The shadow of Protopopov crowns the insane heads of the bloodthirsty stranglers with Trepov's laurels. Raising bridges, counting on starvation--Oh gendarme's of Nikolai, you turn white before them. Lies in newspapers, provocation by Finland--Oh Gapon, how far they are ahead of you. Bands of chekists, cadet detachments--Oh berserkers of the Turkish sultans, you have risen from the dead.
There are machine guns at the crossroads; an icebreaker has passed down the Neva [in order to make the river uncrossable]. Workers of Petrograd! You have all been arrested. You are all being watched by the butcher Trotsky. Seaman and soldiers are locked in their barracks. This is a new kind of concentration camp for the proletariat.
When we, through our authorities, proposed that a delegation be sent to Kronstadt and impartially convinced that there are neither generals nor epaulets with us, but only the laboring mass, which has taken power in its own hands, we agreed that to the impartial non-party comrades would be added Communists, chosen by your authorities, they opened fire.
Why did they do this? The leaders of the authorities cannot not know the truth, and because they know, they are committing a crime. Their power is being destroyed. It slips from them. They must choke and strangle their adversaries, and the stronger they do so, the longer they will exist.
These political corpses have outlived themselves. They have died in Russia, for Russia, apart from Russia, but they still hold on, and in order to hold on they raise the bridges, send an icebreaker down the Neva, set up machine guns, arrest 20,000 people... But will they be able to arrest all of Russia?
And with all of this, they call themselves the power of workers and peasants.
Break the chains, brothers. The dawn of the 3rd Revolution is rising. The bright sun of freedom shines here in Kronstadt. The oppressors power tumbled down like a house of cards, and we, free, are building our Revolutionary Soviet.
Lend a hand, brothers, and forward for freedom and fortune, for power to Soviets, and not parties.
EVINKTIS, seaman of the battleship Sevastopol
LIST
OF WOUNDED, KILLED AND DIED OF WOUNDS
brought to the Naval Hospital from March 10th through 14th
KILLED: soldiers - Sergei NECHAEV and Feodosii KHATKO
DIED OF WOUNDS: Iakov ARKHIPOV
LIGHTLY WOUNDED: sldrs. - Fedor SHITEL, Andrei KOLIASA, Pantelei KARELIN, Georgii CHALENKO, and sailor Dmitrii CHERIUKANOV
HEAVILY WOUNDED: Iosif ERMOLAEV, Mikhail SOVRASOV
WITHOUT COMMISSARS
Yesterday, it was possible to see an interesting sight in the town. A directive was given by the Department of Administration, through the uchkoms, on cleaning the sidewalks of ice and snow. Under the thunder of cannons, citizens poured into the streets and took after the work in a comradely way. The necessary tools were found: shovels, crowbars, axes and the like. The populace answered in a comradely way to the laboring duty, which under the commissarocracy they did under the lash.
MEETING OF THE PROV. REV. COM.
March 14th, a meeting of the Prov. Rev. Com. took place. Among other things, the following resolution was made.
1. About the Worker-Peasant Inspection;
Having heard the report of Comrade Romanenko about the unclear and undefined condition of the existing apparatus of inspection and control, it being an organ chosen by the former Soviet, and not answering to the spirit of the time, after an exchange of opinions it is resolved:
The Worker-Peasant Inspection of the former Kronstadt Soviet Department is to be eliminated. Worker control over civilian institutions is to be placed with the Soviet of Trade Unions, which is assigned to chose a set number of people from the memberships of all the unions. It also must take control of all matters left by the former Worker-Peasant Inspection.
2. About the Cultural-Educational Section of the former Politotdel;
It is resolved: The Revtroika is to be eliminated. All cultural-educational work is to be given into the authority of the Garrison Club.
All property and resources of the former Politotdel and its sections and sub-departments are to be transferred to the Garrison Club. The Garrison Club Revtroika is to take charge of all this, and to make a report on it to the Prov. Rev. Com.
3. About shock work on the repair of the water transport and liquid resources of the Kronstadt Port and Fortress.
It is resolved:
The Soviet of Unions is assigned to immediately call a Technical Conference of representatives from interested institutions. This Conference is assigned to urgently find out, jointly with a representative of the Prov. Rev. Com.: 1) the necessary number of working hands, 2) the amount of material needed, and 3) the amount of time need for completion of the shock work.
FRATERNAL AID
The following donations have arrived at the Fleet Department of Produce Distribution for the use of the defenders of true freedom:
March 14th, from employees of the Prodbaza: Comrade Voevutsky, a new summer soldier's blouse, 1/4 lb. of tobacco and 1/4 lb. of makhorka; Comrade Filippov, 1/8 of makhorka and one box of matches; from Comrade Mikhailov, 1/2 lb. of makhorka; from Comrade Alekseev, a new jacket, a pair of puttees, 1/4 of tobacco and 3 boxes of matches; from Comrade Kuvaldin, high boots, wide summer trousers, 250 cigarette papers, 1/4 of tobacco and 3/8 of makhorka; from Comrade Nikitin, 1 pair of underwear, 1 shirt 1/8 lb. of makhorka and a piece of gray soap; from Comrade Buman, a soldier's blouse, a new sheet, wide trousers, a shirt, 1 pair of socks, 1/2 lb. of tobacco, 1/2 lb. of makhorka, 500 cigarette papers and 10 boxes of matches.
March 15th, from the employees of the Prodbaza of the Fleet Produce Administration: from Comrade Mokhov, 3/4 lb. of makhorka; from Comrade Kondrashev, 1 underwear, 1 shirt, 1/2 lb. of high grade tobacco, 3/8 lb. of makhorka and 250 cigarette papers; from Comrade Baikov, 1 pair of boots, 1 pair of new pants, 1/3 lb. of makhorka and 2 boxes of matches; Onuchin, 1 pair of boots, 1 pair of cloth trousers and 1/4 lb. of makhorka; Poplavsky, 1 pair of boots, 2 sailors' striped vests, 1 pair of underwear, 1 puttees, 1/8 of makhorka, 25 cigarettes, 2 boxes of matches and 1 cloth sailor's blouse; Artamonov, 1 pair of boots, 1 underwear, 1 black pants and 1/2 of tobacco; Manivmon, 1 quilted trousers, 1 flannel sailor's blouse, 1 sailor's striped vest and 3/8 lb. of makhorka; Ilyin, 1 set of worker's clothing, 1 soldier's hat, 1 pair of foot bindings and 1/4 lb. of makhorka; Svirshevsky, 10,000 rubles and 1/4 lb. of makhorka; Bek, 1 flannel sailor's blouse and 1 second hand trousers; Shipelev, summer trousers, 1 set of worker's clothing, 2 soldier's hats and 1/4 lb. of makhorka; Maltsev, 1/4 lb. of makhorka; Telenkov, 2000 rubles, 1 army soldier's hat and 1/4 lb. of makhorka.
The General Meeting of servicemen of the Administration of the 4th Division of Artillery unanimously resolved to extend a fraternal hand of aid to the defenders of free Kronstadt, and share an extra pair of boots. In the same day, the following made donations:
Nikitin B., Karpov I., Dvoinikov I., Sumin F., Sidorov V., Osipov V., Naumovich K., Panov V., Malyshev I., Uvarov M., Zubarev V., Veselov V., Kriuchkov M., Morokhin I., Elesin I., Vasiliev I., Vorobiev I., Mazul A., Ostaschev I., Povoliaev A., Parenkov N., Kirilov A., Govorlivykh A., Emelianov Kh., Ankudinov F., Stopin N., Zakharov V.
Donations continue to arrive.
THANK YOU
On March 14th, an unknown female citizen gave about 5-6 pounds of meat into the command of the President of the Revtroika of the Naval Crew of the First Command of Baltflot. At that time, the seamen had just set off for one of the numbered forts, and the meat was placed in their hands. The seamen give their hearfelt gratitude to the conscientious citizen. It is now known to all that this great-spirited, unknown woman shared this so valuable and tasty morsel with the seamen.
May the party of traitorous liars know this, may they tremble pathetically before the single, fraternal family of Kronstadt.
Crew of the First Command of Baltflot
A SMALL SATIRE
KRONSTADT CHASTUSHKAS
The all-Russian commune
Razed us to the ground,
The Communist dictatorship
Brought us to ruin.
We drove the landowners out,
And waited for freedom, land,
We shook off all the Romanovs,
And were blessed with Communists.
Instead of freedom and land
They gave us the Cheka
And planted Soviet farms
Hither and yon.
They take away bread and beast,
The peasant bloats from hunger,
They took a gray horse from Erema,
And a ploughshare from Makar.
There are no matches, nor kerosine,
Everyone sits with a torch,
Under the Bolshevist commune,
They only eat potatoes.
They sent to the village
Five arshins of red calico,
The commissars took it all away,
Not an inch for the middle peasant.
And throughout Russia
The peasant rose for land,
But everyone writes in Izvestiia,
"The kulaks have rebelled."
The chekist rides out
Like a tsarist general,
Floods the land with blood,
He's fleeced everything to the bone.
They're bringing serfdom for us anew,
Hey, wake up peasants!
Only the Bolsheviks alone,
Eat and drink like the barons before.
Arise peasant folk!
A new dawn is rising—
We'll throw off Trotsky's fetters,
We'll throw off Lenin the tsar.
We'll overthrow the dictatorship,
We'll give freedom to labor,
We'll allot for labor
The land, factories and plants.
Labor will establish equality,
And with labor free forever
Fraternity of all people will come,
And otherwise never.
A RESOLUTION BY PRISONERS OF WAR
At a general meeting of 240 prisoners of war, being cadets, officers and soldiers, taking place in the Army Stables, the following resolution was passed unanimously.
"On March 8th, we, Moscow and Petrograd cadets, officers and soldiers, received an order to attack the town of Kronstadt. They told us that White Guards had raised a mutiny in the town of Kronstadt. When we came without a shot to the shores of the Town of Kronstadt, and having met the forward units of sailors and workers, we became convinced that there was no kind of White Guard mutiny in Kronstadt. On the contrary, the soldiers and workers had overturned the power of the commissarocracy. Right there we voluntarily crossed to the side of the people of Kronstadt. We now ask the Rev. Com. of the Town of Kronstadt to add our strength to its army units, since we want to stand up as defenders of the workers and peasants, not just of Kronstadt but of all Russia also.
We consider that the Prov. Rev. Com. of the Town of Kronstadt has really taken the true path in the cause of liberation of all laborers, and that only with this slogan, "All power to Soviets, and not Parties," is it possible to bring to an end the work which has been begun.
We promise to tell of anyone noticed propagandizing against the actions and orders of the Prov. Rev. Com. of the Town of Kronstadt, and to send them on the the Rev. Com.
(signature), President
(signature), Secretary
RESOLUTION
At the General Meeting of the crew of fort Totleben Morskoi, taking place March 15th, after the report of delegates from the Prov. Rev. Com., the following resolution was passed: "We the garrison of fort Totleben Morskoi greet you, comrade seamen, workers and soldiers of the town of Kronstadt, in the great difficult hour of our glorious struggle against the hated Communist yoke. We are all ready as one to die for the liberation of our suffering brothers, the peasants and workers of all Russia, who are held in chains of damned slavery by deceipt and oppression. Protecting the approaches to Kronstadt, we will be faithful to our word to the end. We believe that soon we will smash to bits the circle of enemies around the fortress with a decisive attack, and bring freedom to every person of the suffering motherland real truth and freedom [sic]."
LEAVING THE PARTY
All those leaving the ranks of the R.C.P. are directed to turn in their party booklets and identifications to their electoral troikas. Those leaving the party in the future and giving declarations are directed to do so right now.
Declarations of departure from the R.C.P. arrive unceasingly at the editorial offices, but in view of their great quantity and the insufficiency of space, the editors are unable to publish them immediately, and will include them as possible in following editions of the newspaper.
Having discussed the current situation, we, members of the R.C.P., are disgusted by the shameless actions of the little bunch of Communist bureaucrats who strive to protect their power with arms, and to build prosperity for themselves on others' misfortune. We openly declare that we did not enter the party in order to drown the world of laborers in blood, but to give all our strength and knowledge for the good of the laborers. This gang used our trust and wove itself a wasps' nest. We consider such oppressors to be outside the law, and we will, equally with the toilers of the town of Kronstadt, defend the true path on which the revolutionary seamen, soldiers and workers stand. As of this date, we do not consider ourselves to be members of the party, and give ourselves entirely into the command of the Revolutionary Committee.
Fedorov, Efimov, Berendakov, Kurochkin, Tikhomirov, Esh, Kuznetsov, Vishnevsky, Efimov, Storkhberg, Tmota and Tsepaev, employees of the Worker-Peasant Inspection
Declarations have also arrived from the following:
Seamen: 232) Kulakov Mikhail, 233) Burmistrov Aleksandr, 234) Lugovskoi Mikhail, 235) Dudkevich Arkadii, 236) Shabariv Ivan, 237) Romanov Sergei, 238) Mamchenko Pavel, 239) Baranon Kuzma, 240) Kotenkov Ivan, 241) Sviiazev Sergei, 242) Brauk Karl, 243) Vokovets Ivan, 244) Vinogradov Mikhail, 245) Senni Maksim, 246) Bogdanov Vasilii, 247) Terentiev Stepan, 248) Grafov Aleksei, 249) Krasnoshevsky Iosif, 250) Cheridnichenko Mark, 251) Lisitsyn Nikolai, 252) Sorokin Semion, 253) Diak Anton, 254) Bykov Grigorii, 255) Vlasov Dmitrii, 256) Sereda Andrei, 257) Buluev Andrei, 258) Ekimov Mikhail, 259) Morozov Aleksei, 260) Korliakov Grigorii, 261) Malaukhov Vasilii, 262) Prasolov Grigorii, 263) Butin Ivan, 264) Poliakov Gerasim, 265) Shatokhin Mikhail, 266) Saltykov Mikhail, 267) Iurchenko Mark, 268) Raskatov Vasilii, 269) Gusarov Mikhail, 270) Zhitnikov Aleksandr, [sic] 272) Protasov Ivan, 273) Sovolev Mikhail, 274) Markov Mikhail, 275) Kholodov Ivan, 276) Marinov G., 277) Sitnikov Andrei.
Candidate members of the R.C.P.: I. Marklev; A. Utrimov, soldier of the 10th Battery; also N. Malafeev; Kondratenko, member of the R.C.P.; S. Gorlov, sldr. of 4th Division; I. Kivikhin, employee of the Prodbaza; I. Grigoriev, sldr. of the Fortress Fire Crew; also I. Korotov; N. Andreev, member of the Admin. of the Union of Sewing Production; N. Tikhomirov, employee of the Watch Crew of the Kronstadt Port; Zavialov, sldr. of fort Totleben; also P. Ivanov; N. Platonov, seaman; F. Zhilin, master in the Naval Artillery Laboratory; Angileiko, Aide to the Commander of the Engineer. Work. Battalion; Nikiforov, Aide to the Director of the Transport String of the Admin. of Construction; I. Panfilov, sldr. of 560th Battalion; also D. Piskarev; N. Vinogradov; also Korshinov; A. Solonschikov, soldier of the Watch Crew of the Kronstadt Port; also I. Maksimov; K. Grigoriev, seaman; E. Khromov, member of the R.C.P.; A. Krasikov, Head of the Admin. of the Commander of the Town of Kronstadt; E. Tikhomirov, seaman; Gamzov, employee of the Ship Department; also Leonenko; also Korotkevich; also Galakhov; also Blashek; also Bortnikov; also A. Beliaev; also E. Balaev; also I. Petrov; also Sterling; also Iampoltsev; also Petkevich; also E. Nikitin; also V. Egorov; also Karpovich; also Shulgin; also Vnukov, also I. Bykhov, sldr. of the Kotlin Railroad; also Brynsky; also Volkov; also Baranovsky; also M. Fedorov; also Grushechevich; also Kuzmin; also V. Romanov; also V. Zembal; also S. Afanasenko, militiaman; also N. Kraubner, serviceman of the Admin of Construct. of the Fortress; P. Ukhnalevich, member of the R.C.P.; also 334) Popov.
PRODUCE
FROM GORPRODKOM
Today, half a pound of bread is issued by adult cards of letter A for coupon No 17. March 16th, 17th and 18th, 2 lbs. of white flour is issued by children's cards of series A from stores NoNo 1, 5, 10, 13, 14 ,15, 25 and 30 (independent of registration) for produce coupon No 11, and a one pound tin on canned milk from stores NoNo 5 and 14 for produce coupon No 12. Flour and milk will be issued for three days.
March 16th and 17th, the haberdashery store (formerly belonging to Schukin) will be open from 2 to 7. It is incumbent on institutions and citizens having orders for good from the above named store to register them in the Department of Distribution of Gorprodkom, room No 19, and to receive the goods during the announced period.
AL. OKOLOTKOV, for the President of Gorprodkom
NOTICES
--The handicraft workshop of the Soviet of the People's Economy accepts orders for bed linen and clothes, with trimmings supplied by the orderer.
--The Department of Social Security announces to citizens that textiles in the possession of the Department have all been distributed. Others who have turned in applications will be supplied first, upon receipt of textiles.
--Warrant No 12 of Comrade Nikitin, member of the Revtroika of the battleship Petropavlovsk has been lost. We ask that it be considered invalid.
NOTICE
The Administration of the Central Garrison Club brings to the attention of club members that lessons have resumed in all studios. It therefore addresses a request to all teachers, and also to club members to attend lessons as possible.
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Revtroika of the Prodbaza asks military units and the civilian populace to not throw away tins from preserves, since they can be used a second time for the same purpose. Please turn them in at the following addresses.
At Big Port, to Aramonov, the overseer of the warehouses, or on former Kniazheskaya Street at the Oprodkomflot Store. Receipt will take place from 10 A.M. until 4 P.M.