Kronstadt + Workers' Opposition Flashcards
Workers’ Opposition formation
- 1920
- The Workers’ Opposition was led by Alexander Shlyapnikov, who was also chairman of the Russian Metalworkers’ Union, and it consisted of trade union leaders and industrial administrators who had formerly been industrial workers. Alexandra Kollontai, the famous socialist feminist, was the group’s mentor and advocate.
Workers’ Oppositions reasons for formation
- delicate balance — between the trade unions and the party-state — was upset by Trotsky’s plans, put forward in the summer of 1920, to transform the transport unions into a branch of the state bureaucracy.
- At the Fifth Trade Union Congress in November Trotsky threw down the gauntlet by proposing that all union officials should be appointed by the state.
- much of the party leadership itself backed trade unionist leaders who opposed. Zinoviev, a personal rival of Trotsky, denounced his ‘police methods of dragooning workers’.
- defend the rights of the trade unions and, more generally, to
- resist the spread of ‘bureaucratism’ which they said was stifling the ‘spontaneous self-creativity’ of the working class
Workers’ Opposition actions
- At a Special Party Conference in September combined with Democratic Centralists (opposed to the bureaucratic centralism of the party and to the demise of the Soviets as organs of direct worker-rule) to force through a series of resolutions whose aim was to promote democracy and glasnost in the party
Workers’ Opposition partial success
‘If the party quarrels with the trade unions,’ Lenin warned, ‘then this will certainly be the end of Soviet power.’
- conducting a purge of the Party and organizing better supply of workers, to improve workers’ living conditions. Several leaders of the Workers’ Opposition, including Shlyapnikov, were elected to the Party Central Committee.
Kronstadt - workers strikes
- Workers were deprived of their meagre rations, imprisoned, even shot, if their factories failed to meet the set production quotas. On 22 January the bread ration was cut by one-third in several industrial cities, including Moscow and Petrograd. Even the most privileged workers were given only 1,000 calories a day.
- Moscow was the first to erupt. A rash of workers’ meetings called for an end to the Communists’ privileges, the restoration of free trade and movement (meaning their right to travel into the countryside and barter with the peasants), civil liberties and the Constituent Assembly.
- By 21 February thousands of workers were out on strike.
- On 23 February, as 10,000 workers marched in protest through the streets, martial law was declared in the capital.
- all big metal plants joined; practically general strike
Kronstadt - peasant background
- most came from peasant background
- Stepan Petrichenko leader = uki peasnt
- “When we returned home our parents asked us why we fought for the oppressors. That set us thinking.”
Kronstadt - demands
What we are fighting for, march 1 "After … the October Revolution, the working class had hoped to achieve its emancipation. The result has been to create an even greater enslavement of the individual man. The power of the police-gendarme monarchy has gone into the hands of the Communist-usupers, who instead of freedom offer the toilers the constant fear of falling into the torture-chambers of the Cheka … (T)he sickle and the hammer – have actually been replaced … with the bayonet and the barred window, for the sake of preserving the calm, carefree life of the new bureaucracy of Communist commissars … Here at Kronstadt the first stone of the third revolution has been laid … - Freedom of speech and press - Release of political prisoners - End of grain requisitioning - End of labour-armies - End of militarised workplaces
Kronstadt - suppresion
- March 7 began attack
- 60,000 troops
- At least 10,000 Red Army soldiers were killed and 5000 Kronstadters.
Kronstatd - vanguard of the revolution
- ‘pride and glory of the revolution’ ‘reddest of the red’
- the Petropavlovsk and the Sevastopol, 94 per cent of the crew had been recruited before 1918.
Kronstadt - ruthlessness
: ‘Only those who surrender unconditionally may count on the mercy of the Soviet Republic.’
Kronstadt - impacts
Lenin: ‘This (the Kronstadt revolt) was the flash which lit up reality better than anything else.’
- ‘It was a symbolic parting of the ways between the working class and the Bolshevik Party.’
- 16 March Tenth Soviet Congress
- - In the atmosphere of hysterical panic — which Lenin helped to create at the Congress with his constant warnings that Soviet power could be overthrown at any moment — the Bolshevik delegates were much too frightened to question Lenin’s charge. They accepted his demagogic line that strict party unity was called for at this moment and that to tolerate such opposition factions could only benefit the enemy
His two resolutions condemning the Workers’ Opposition received massive m,,ajorities, with no more than thirty of the 694 Congress delegates voting against them
- 16 March voted through ban on party factions (secret clause)
krons- hist
“counter-revolutionary” tried to exploit the discontent of the petty bourgeois masses CPSU
Worker’s Opp repression
Kollantai complained that while officially one and a half million copies of the”Workers’ Opposition”manifesto was published, in fact only 1500 were”and that with difficulty.”
w]hen the metalworkers’ union held its congress in May 1921, the Central Committee of the party handed it a list of recommended candidates for the union leadership. The metalworkers’ delegates voted down the party-backed list, but this gesture proved futile: the party leadership boldly appointed their own men to the union offices.”This was”a show of political force”as the union was a centre of the Workers’ Opposition.
Workers Group foundations
- w]hen the metalworkers’ union held its congress in May 1921, the Central Committee of the party handed it a list of recommended candidates for the union leadership. The metalworkers’ delegates voted down the party-backed list, but this gesture proved futile: the party leadership boldly appointed their own men to the union offices.”This was”a show of political force”as the union was a centre of the Workers’ Opposition.
- demanded organisation of production by the masses themselves, beginning with factory collectives.
- demanded organisation of production by the masses themselves, beginning with factory collectives.
- you raise your hand against the bourgeoisie and you strike at the worker.
Workers Group repression
- expulsion from the party, which was agreed by the Politburo on February 20, 1922.
- Miasnikov was arrested by the GPU (the new name for the Cheka) on May 25, 1923
- ## By the end of September its meeting places had been raided, literature seized, and leaders arrested. Twelve members were expelled from the party and fourteen others received reprimands
