In which we go to Kronstadt! (Also, opera.)

[sabotabby]

I don't have an "anarcho-tourism" tag, but I should, just for entries like this one.

Yes, I was a geeky enough (and Anya was good-humoured enough) to go to Kronstadt.


Tuesday, April 25

We spent most of the day in Kronstadt, famous for Trotsky's violent suppression of an uprising by sailors who took the business of revolution more seriously than the Bolsheviks did. (You can debate that one.)


In fairness to ol' Leon, you can practically see Finland from Kronstadt.


The anarcho-tourist.

Kronstadt is a charming little shithole. It's beautiful and decrepit—it reminded Anya of Barrow, Alaska.



For several hundred years, everyone from Peter the Great to Leonid Brezhnev tried to make it a livable city, but to no avail.


Tiny little me in front of the ships.


The Naval Cathedral.

[Poll #725824]


We went back to St. Petersburg and met up with Masha to see the best opera yet. It was a production of Verdi's Otello. Very minimal—no costumes , only one prop (the handkerchief), and very little acting per se. But the music was phenomenal. The fellow playing Iago stole the show, but Desdemona's aria was also heartrending.

In other news, I got to eat in a Soviet-style cafeteria and ride in a Lada. Neither were as bad as they're claimed to be. [Famous last words. Guess what happened the next time I drove in a Lada?]


Me, back home, wearing my @#$% Kronstadt sailor hat. (Yes, it actually says "Kronstadt" on it. I'm that dorky.)

Comments

[realcdaae.livejournal.com]

No, he did the left thing. Har har har!

[sabotabby]

LOL COMMUNISM!

[loveitorleaveit.livejournal.com]

ZOMG PINKOS!

[sabotabby]

OMWTF FASCIST!

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[apperception.livejournal.com]

See? Because all of you liberal tailists voted against Trotsky, you've opened the door to encroaching fascism. This is what you get. ;)

(What the fuck is a tailist anyway?)

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[sabotabby]

Oooh! I know this one. It's when you infilitrate a group because it's popular.

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[apperception.livejournal.com]

So wait, is this a principled infiltration, i.e., one motivated by a correct line, where you try to undermine it from the inside? Or is this a derogatory word for a comrade who frequently changes his line so as to accord with the political flavor of the month?

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[sabotabby]

It's derogatory; at least I've always heard it used as such. I think there's a different term for it when one approves of such actions, but it escapes me.

[roter-terror.livejournal.com]

Looks nice enough to me. The Naval Cathedreal is very beautiful.

[sabotabby]

I only took pictures of the pretty parts; the only way to get there is on a tour, and they stop at the scenic bits, not where the buildings are all falling apart. The Naval Cathedral isn't open. I utterly love the dome on it, though. Anchors and ropes!

[roter-terror.livejournal.com]

I didn't even notice that! What an amazing touch!

[sabotabby]

It was quite brilliant. (Bit of trivia: It was the last church built before the Revolution, and too pretty for the Bolsheviks to tear down.) I'm not one for churches ordinarily, but I have to admit that it was very cool.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

What's with all these class traitors saying Trotsky did the wrong thing?

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Aren't sailors working class?

[gillen.livejournal.com]

Only when they're working.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

Awww SNAP!

[emak-bakia.livejournal.com]

Zounds! You did all of the things that I'm planning on doing! Were there any kind of museums in Kronstadt, or any mention of the uprising anywhere?

Besides, what's there to debate about Kronstadt? The sailors wanted to return power to the worker-controlled soviets and supported a more anarchist, actual revolution. Trotsky had them killed. Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

[sabotabby]

The Naval Cathedral is supposedly a museum (according to my book, anyway), but it was closed. No mention of the uprising; lots of memorials to dead sailors in general and dead sailors who fought in the Revolution and WWII particularly.

I suppose the opposing argument (which is not one I agree with, by the way), is that in order to have any sort of revolution at all, Trotsky had no choice but to crush the uprising. It seems a bit more reasonable when you're actually there and see how close Finland is; Kronstadt was St. Petersburg's only line of defense.

Still, if you have them killed, who defends the port? I guess it worked. Listening to their demands would have ended the uprising and produced, IMO, a significantly better revolution.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Still my no. 1 reason (amongst many others!) why I'd not join the SWP. Still not forgotten the Kronstadt.

[sabotabby]

Still get drunk and argue with the Trots over it. ;)

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Been doing it for years, though arguing with the local SWP membership is about as useful and enriching as arguing with farm animals. The magic word "Kronstadt" never fails to act like a rabid ferret up their collective trousers though.

"Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

For a change, the Sparts actually wrote something useful recently.

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[sabotabby]

That lost me with the claim that the anarchist CNT leaders were in league with the Stalinists during the Spanish Civil War.

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

Do you deny that CNT leaders served as ministers in the Catalonian government alongside the Stalinists? And even if you do, what exactly does that have to do with what the Russian archives reveal about Kronstadt?

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[sabotabby]

Of course they did; it was a coalition government. That's different than the claim that they actively worked together (presumably against the Trotskyists) to derail the war. It makes me question the credibility of the author and research.

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

The key is to pay attention to citations. For example, the phrase you object to is cheek-to-jowl with a reference to Felix Morrow's Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain. The basic thesis of that book, to way over-simplify it, is that the coalition politics of the Popular Front handicapped the revolution in Spain, and that the Stalinist and Anarchist leaders, through their participation in that government, contributed in different ways to the defeat. Agree or disagree with that thesis--I, for one, agree with it--it's a serious argument that has to be addressed. The Sparts, in their typically half-assed way, simplify it even further to say that the CNT and CP leaders were "in league with" one another. One has to expect such things with the Sparts. If I were to stop reading them as soon as they said something politically idiotic, I would have stopped much sooner than you, with the second paragraph, when they start foaming at the mouth about "self-selected White Guard heir Boris Yeltsin ... who had led the 1991-92 overturn of the Bolshevik Revolution."

As is usual with the Sparts, much of the opening section of the article is often dubious boilerplate. If either of us were to only read things we agree with, we'd both be practical illiterates. My point is that both of these questions are tangential to the central question of the article, namely the revelations from the Russian archives about Kronstadt. Once it gets to the point, the article is much more scrupulous about documenting its assertions.

Unfortunately, neither of us can read Russian, so we can't independently verify the citations. But there are plenty of people who can, and the citations in the article give convenient signposts for them should they choose to do so.

To sum up some of those revelations: White Guard influence over the Kronstadt garrison appears to have been active, though covert, perhaps even greater than originally claimed by the Bolsheviks; suppression of the revolt was militarily necessary; and implementation of the Kronstadter program, such as it was, would have meant the mass slaughter of Communists. Again, these are debatable theses, but disputing them would require recourse to historical documentation, not legend.

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[sabotabby]

Fair enough. The problem with debating based on the opening of the Russian archives is that you either need to speak Russian or you need to trust that the person who does is not letting his or her ideological biases get in the way. I keep running into Stalinists who want to use material found in the archives to exonerate Uncle Joe, for example.

In terms of the argument:

White Guard influence over the Kronstadt garrison appears to have been active, though covert, perhaps even greater than originally claimed by the Bolsheviks

This is the sort of thing that I would buy with independent verification.

suppression of the revolt was militarily necessary

This is the easiest to justify, as I mentioned to emak_bakia above.

and implementation of the Kronstadter program, such as it was, would have meant the mass slaughter of Communists.

This is the most debatable of the assertions, because it hinges on what ifs rather than historical certainties.

I mean, my answer to my own poll question, based on the availability of evidence I've had so far, is an instinctive "No," followed by "I'm not in Trotsky's position" followed by a pragmatic "It was 1921, get over it." Not that I think that it doesn't ultimately matter, but because even if we (the anarchists) are right, it was only one of many mistakes made during the Russian Revolution. And if the communists are right, it was only one of many attacks by the Whites and doesn't point to a huge ideological gap between anarchism and communism.

Re: "Hue and Cry over Kronstadt" redux

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

And if the communists are right, it was only one of many attacks by the Whites and doesn't point to a huge ideological gap between anarchism and communism.

At least we're agreed on that much. The Spanish Civil War, in contrast, does point to such a programmatic difference. The fact that in the late 1930s certain anarchists' response to Trotskyist criticism of the CNT-FAI leaders was to holler, "Oh, yeah? Well, Kronstadt!", is a classic case of changing the subject when the argument and reality are going against you. When someone does that, it leads me to suspect they have something to hide. Contrast that with Trotsky and John G. Wright's responses to the Kronstadt debate of that era, which, even if one disputes particular matters of fact and interpretation in them, can hardly be said to be evasive. If one lacks personal direct access to the materials in question, for linguistic reasons, then one has to decide whom to trust.

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Kronstadt, famous for Trotsky's violent suppression of an uprising

(checks wording)

....is the correct answer. Though I knew all along you couldn't possibly be a Trot.

my @#$% Kronstadt sailor hat

I want one of those!