Trotskyists come clean

A review of "Kronstadt", a book published by the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. 

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.