![]() įrom the perspective of Lenin and Trotsky, the great crime of the Kronstadt rebels in 1921 was to call for “All power to the soviets, and not to parties.” The soviets, as the Kronstadt rebels understood them, were meant to be decentralized workers’ councils, through which people could practice self-determination directly, rather than attempting to express their agency indirectly by voting for representatives to participate in the Constituent Assembly or simply carrying out the orders of a Party-controlled Central Committee. Essentially, the conflict among Russian anti-capitalist revolutionaries was about whether power should be vested in a one-party dictatorship, in representative electoral politics, or in horizontally organized workers’ councils. Rather, the Kronstadt uprising represented the final rupture between the autocratic dictatorship of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and every other communist and socialist current in the country, as well as anarchists and other elements of the working class-especially those to the left of the Bolsheviks, as the Bolsheviks had adopted many right-wing policies by that time. ![]() While both anarchists and apologists for Lenin and Stalin often portray the Kronstadt uprising as a conflict between anarchists and party communists, this is a misunderstanding that has arisen as a result of subsequent conflicts. Appendix: A Chronology of the Kronstadt Uprising, including the Text of Their Daily PaperĮlectoral Democracy, Party Dictatorship, or Self-Determination?.From the Power of the Soviets to “Soviet Power”.Electoral Democracy, Party Dictatorship, or Self-Determination?.1 Though many different factions have attempted to portray the Kronstadt uprising according to many different ideological frameworks, this is a rare opportunity to see the rebellion from the vantage point of the rebels themselves.Īn English-language facsimile of the third issue of the Izvestia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Sailors, Soldiers, and Workers of the Town of Kronstadt. To observe the 100-year anniversary of the revolt, we present an overview of the questions that were at stake in the struggle, following by a full chronology of the events, illustrated by selections from contemporary historical documents-including the entire text of all 14 issues of the newspaper published by the Kronstadt rebels, the Izvestia of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Sailors, Soldiers, and Workers of the Town of Kronstadt. In March 1921, an uprising on the island fortress of Kronstadt shook Russia, starkly illustrating the conflicts within the Russian revolution.
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