Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: Hue and Cry Over Kronstadt¶
This chapter dissects the sustained campaign around the Kronstadt uprising, arguing that it is fuelled by a “people’s front” of Anarchists, Mensheviks, liberals, and reactionaries, all united in their desire to discredit revolutionary Marxism. The uprising is analysed not as a spontaneous rebellion of the proletariat, but as an episode in the fundamental class struggle between the proletarian city and the petty-bourgeois village. The Baltic fleet, we are told, comprised three distinct layers: a core of proletarian revolutionists, a peasant intermediate majority, and a reactionary element drawn from the sons of kulaks and priests. By 1921, the civil war had drained Kronstadt of its most revolutionary forces, leaving a demoralised, undisciplined garrison that included hostile elements from Latvia and Estonia. The uprising is therefore characterised as a convulsion of the peasant petty-bourgeoisie, hostile to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its central slogan, “Soviets without Communists,” would have served, in the logic of the struggle, as a bridge to capitalist restoration, rendering the revolt objectively counter-revolutionary. The Petrograd workers, crucially, did not support Kronstadt but the Soviet power.
The insurgent sailors lacked a conscious programme, a reflection of the petty-bourgeoisie’s inherent limitations. While rightist elements behind the scenes sought bourgeois restoration, the left wing merely wanted free soviets, an end to discipline, and better rations. The argument that no true uprising occurred is dismissed as puerile; the world counter-revolution would not have left the fortress isolated. The logic of the struggle would have given predominance to the most counter-revolutionary elements, making the fortress dependent on the foreign bourgeoisie and White émigrés. The Bolsheviks acted to extinguish the fire immediately, minimising casualties. The introduction of the New Economic Policy a year earlier might have averted the uprising, but the proletarian revolution could not be expected to commit suicide to punish itself for a political error.
Critics of the suppression are, in essence, opponents of the dictatorship of the proletariat and therefore of revolution. They desire a revolution without dictatorship, or a dictatorship without force, which would require an impossibly high development of the toiling masses, making dictatorship unnecessary. The working class is not homogeneous; revolution is possible only when the vanguard leads the majority, but internal contradictions among toilers inevitably reappear. The Spanish revolution is cited as a negative confirmation of the lessons of October: the People’s Front government stifles socialist revolution and shoots revolutionists, while Anarchists participate in or support the executioners. The present disputes around Kronstadt revolve around the same class axis as the uprising itself, with petty-bourgeois blunderers using the episode against the Fourth International.