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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Workers fight to defend their revolution,
By Harvey (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kronstadt (Paperback)
This short collection presents one of the central questions facing working people the world over-- what does it take to defend the conquests of a workers revolution in the living complexity of a real revolutionary struggle? Kronstadt was the scene of an uprising against the Russian Revolution several years after the Bolsheviks led workers and peasants to overthrow capitalism. "Kronstadt" details the pressures of war and economic blockade imposed by the United States, France, Britain and other capitalist powers, which made the early years of the revolution enormously difficult. This left some among workers and peasants as well as middle-class layers open to counter-revolutionary propaganda and actions. More recently, similar challenges arose in the Cuban revolution and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, both of which faced years of murderous attacks by U.S.-organized counter-revolutionaries. "Kronstadt" reprints excerpts from contemporary speeches and reports by two central leaders of the Russian Revolution, V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky, as well as later articles by Trotsky drawing lessons of the experience. They explain the roots of the crisis and the measures taken by the revolutionary government to suppress the uprising. They answer arguments of anarchists and others who turned their backs on the revolution and acted in behalf of the capitalist-inspired counterrevolution. An extensive glossary, introduction and a 1938 article "The Truth About Kronstadt" from the socialist journal "New International" round out the collection and will help you make sense of these important events.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Trotskyists come clean,
By Ashtar Command "Seeker" (Stockholm, Sweden) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kronstadt (Paperback)
In 1921, the sailors of the Kronstadt naval base outside Petrograd (St. Petersburg) rebelled against the Bolshevik regime. The Soviet regime succeeded in suppressing the uprising, but it has nevertheless acquired a strong symbolic significance for virtually all non-Bolsheviks. The Kronstadt sailors adopted a political program, elected a free soviet and published a short-lived newspaper. Their leader, Petrichenko, managed to escape abroad and gave interviews to Russian émigré publications. The Kronstadt sailors had supported the October Revolution in 1917, and had a reputation for being super-revolutionary, "the purest of the pure". The Kronstadt uprising was therefore an acute embarrassment to the Bolsheviks. The fact that it took place during the Tenth Party Congress of the Bolshevik Party, where Lenin launched the New Economic Policy in an attempt to appease the restive Russian peasantry, only added to its symbolic significance.
The Kronstadt rebellion is particularly embarrassing to Trotskyists, who claim to stand for a different kind of socialism or Communism than Stalin. Indeed, Trotsky called for a "political revolution" against Stalin, even calling for free elections to the soviets and the legalization of the Mensheviks and the SRs. At least that's what Trotsky said in 1938, when he was exiled in Mexico. But when Trotsky was in power, together with Lenin and indeed Stalin himself, he participated in the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion. Anarchists in particular have used this against Trotsky and the Trotskyists, and so have some left-socialists. "Kronstadt", a book published by Pathfinder Press, is a Trotskyist attempt to "set the record straight". Pathfinder is the publishing arm of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. I can't say the SWP succeeds in its attempt to "prove" that Lenin and Trotsky were different from the Stalinists. Nevertheless, their book does contain a lot of interesting source material, and can be recommended simply for that reason. The first section of "Kronstadt" contain nine articles or excerpts from articles written by V.I. Lenin. The second section contain Trotsky's writings on Kronstadt, both articles he wrote while in power and later pieces written in exile, in which he still defends (quite openly) the Bolshevik decision to suppress the rebellion. A third section of the book contain an article by American Trotskyist John G. Wright, apparently written after consultations with Trotsky himself, and a polemical exchange between the SWP and two independent Marxists, Victor Serge and Dwight Macdonald. I'm not sure who the latter was, but Serge was a well-known Marxist intellectual, originally from Belgium, who supported Trotsky against Stalin during his prolonged stay in the Soviet Union. He was eventually able to leave Russia, but broke with Trotsky in favour of the POUM and the "London Bureau". "Kronstadt" also contain a more modern article, written by Pierre Frank, a leader of the Fourth International at the time the book was published. Well, at least it's good to know that the Trotskyists come clean and admit that they really did want the Kronstadt mutineers to be shot like partridges! Honesty is the first rule of politics, right? Those interested in a more in-depth treatment of the events at Kronstadt should obtain a copy of Paul Avrich's "Kronstadt 1921". However, "Kronstadt" by Pathfinder Press is a good supplemental volume for those interested in the Bolshevik version of events. In that sense, the book deserves five stars.
6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"a...Herculean task",
By
This review is from: Kronstadt (Paperback)
For the workers and farmers of Russia, winning political power in 1917 was a formidable enough job in itself. However, defending the new revolution quickly became a much more Herculean task.From 1917-21, the new Soviet Republic battled imperialist invasion and counterrevolutionary forces in a civil war. The Kronstadt rebellion flared when it seemed the civil war was at a pause and the political and fighting capacities of the countries working people was near exhaustion. There were many other rebellions during the period, but Kronstadt posed more serious implications for the existence of working class leadership heading the Soviet government. Opponents of the October revolution saw Kronstadt as the closest point to Europe and a defenceless Petrograd. A central demand of the nearly 15,000 rebels was, "Soviets without Bolsheviks" which was a weak kneed way of calling for the overthrow of the workers and farmers government. The book covers the speeches and writings of Bolshevik leaders Lenin and Trotsky exposing the dangers involved and what was behind the motivations of the Kronstadt rebels and it's leaders. In later years, Trotsky takes on critics who label aspects of the Bolsheviks suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion as the beginning of Stalinism. When over three hundred delegates to the Russian communist party congress volunteer to throw themselves - in the biting cold of the Russian winter -into the middle of a military battle you are not sure you are going to win and do just that. Then you know the mutineers at Kronstadt were up against a force much wider and deeper than the Bolsheviks.
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