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Cake day: February 13th, 2024

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  • "Lenin himself admitted as much when he told the Tenth Party Congress on March 15 that in Kronstadt “they do not want the White Guards, and they do not want our power either.” Although he insisted that the emigres had an important role in the affair, Lenin recognized that the rising was not a mere repetition of the White movements of the Civil War. He looked upon it, rather, as a sign of the deep gulf which had come to divide his party from the Russian people. If the White Guards were involved, he said, “at the same time the movement amounts to a petty bourgeois counterrevolution, to petty bourgeois anarchistic spontaneity.” By this he meant that, at bottom, the revolt reflected the discontent of the Russian peasantry, the small proprietors who had no use for the state and its controls but wanted to be left alone to use their land as they saw fit. “Without doubt,” Lenin added, "this petty bourgeois counterrevolution is more dangerous than Denikin, Yudenich, and Kolchak put together. For we are dealing with a country in which peasant property has come to ruin, besides which the demobilization of the army has set loose vast numbers of potentially mutinous elements. "

    "In practice, despite the government’s continued insistence that White Army generals were behind the Kronstadt rebellion, former tsarist officers were far more prominent among the Bolsheviks than the rebels. White Colonel Georg Elfvengren would confirm in an April 1921 report that there had indeed been White agents based in Petrograd plotting a coup of the Soviet government in February and March 1921, but he also reported that the Kronstadt revolt was “not the actions of the [White] organizations” and that the revolt “occurred spontaneously against [the Whites’] wishes.”

    Stepan Petrichenko, the leader of the rebellion, tried to join the White Army before the Kronstadt Rebellion, and joined the White Army after it failed, under general Wrangel. The White Army was a fascist, anti-communist group. We also know that Petrichenko attempted to instill paranoia among the sailors by lying about Bolsheviks executing strike leaders, and allied with Mensheviks, Kadets, ex-Capitalists, and black market speculators that together formed the Provisional Revolutionary Committee with several Anarchists. What else could this be but a fascist-led counter-revolution?

    Can you provide source for Stepan Petrichenko joining the white army before the Kronstadt Rebellion? Can you also provide a small resume on each leader of the supperssion of the Kronstadt Rebellion and what they did in the following years? According to your own logic if they turned fascist we could argue that the whole repression was fascist-led. Considering this happened before fascist even rose to power in italy the term you are throwing around has a lose meaning. The activities fascists were involved in during these years in italy resemble to me these of the Bolsheviks repressive methods quoted in the conversation.

    Is your point that Communists are just violent and evil individuals? Or that Lenin’s indirect involvement means he isn’t worthy of recognition of his role in Marxist theory and as the architect of the first Socialist State? It’s a pointless gotcha that lacks meaningful analysis, you wish you could wave a magic wand and have everyone happy. I do too, but I don’t believe it’s possible, so I analyze from a materialist lens.

    I believe the hero status is something reserved to people who did great or good with no injustice. I’m not arguing communism or marxist theory.


  • We see a hostile, fascist-led revolt, and a subsequent response from the Communists.

    This is your rendition of the events and you have the guts to call out others for no context or analysis

    I hope you actually read the wikipedia page and are aware of the events, if not i encourage you to study and read more, the wikipedia page provides other sources.



  • "Although the rebels did not expect a military confrontation with the government, tensions in Kronstadt grew after the arrest and disappearance of a delegation sent by the naval base to Petrograd to investigate the situation of strikes and protests in the city. Some of the base’s communists began to arm themselves while others abandoned it.

    On March 2, the delegates of warships, military units, and unions met to prepare for reelection of the local soviet. About 300 delegates joined in to renew the soviet as decided at the previous day’s assembly. The leading Bolshevik representatives tried to dissuade the delegates through threats, but were unsuccessful. Three of them, the president of the local soviet and the commissars of the Kuzmin fleet and the Kronstadt platoon, were arrested by the rebels. The break with the government came about as a rumor spread through the assembly that the government planned to crack down on the assembly and send government troops to the naval base. Immediately a Provisional Revolutionary Committee (PRC) was elected, formed by the five members of the collegiate presidency of the assembly, to manage the island until the election of a new local soviet. The committee enlarged to 15 members two days later. The assembly of delegates became the island’s parliament, and met twice on March 4 and 11.

    Part of the Kronstadt Bolsheviks hastily left the island. A group of them, led by the fortress commissioner, tried to crush the revolt but, lacking support, eventually ran away. During the early hours of March 2, the town, fleet boats and island fortifications were already in the hands of the PRC, which met with no resistance. The rebels arrested 326 Bolsheviks, about a fifth of the local communists, the rest of whom were left free. In contrast, the Bolshevik authorities executed forty-five sailors in Oranienbaum and took relatives of the rebels hostage. None of the rebel-held Bolsheviks suffered abuse, torture or executions. The prisoners received the same rations as the rest of the islanders and lost only their boots and shelters, which were handed over to the soldiers on duty at the fortifications."





  • The Communists fought against the Black Guards, a millitant organization that was anti-bolshevik, after the Cheka believed them to be planning a major strike against the Communists. These were not simply random, innocent Anarchists reading theory and making tea, but a millitant organization opposed to the Communists in the middle of a Civil War.

    “Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, in April, 1921, at which Lenin declared open and merciless war not only against Anarchists but against “all petty bourgeois Anarchist and Anarcho-Syndicalist tendencies wherever found. It was then and there that began the systematic, organised, and most ruthless extirmination of Anarchists in Bolshevik-ruled Russia. On the very day of the Lenin speech scores of Anarchists, Anarcho-Syndicalists, and their sympathisers were arrested in Moscow and Petrograd”

    For clarity, this implies you would have supported the fascist-led rebellion in the middle of a Civil War, while Russia was being invaded by a dozen Capitalist nations. I hope I am misinterpreting your words here.

    All i said is that i wouldn’t consider heroic lenin involvement in the Kronstadt rebellion which was suppressed with blood. You praising repressive methods that resemble that of fascists has bigger implications if you ask me.


  • The subset of Anarchists that decided to fight the world’s first Socialist State, rather than join the other Anarchists in supporting it, were certainly not innocent

    Some of them were fighting against a government that engaged “anarchists” in this fashion: “the Communist Government attacked, without provocation or warning, the Anarchist Club of Moscow and by the use of machine guns and artillery “liquidated” the whole organisation”

    You claim Lenin to be your hero from history so i asked your thoughts on his involvement in the Kronstadt rebellion which was suppressed with blood. It’s the first example that came to my mind of one of his shady actions that i personally wouldn’t consider heroic.