Utopia in Revolution: The Kronstadt Republic and the End of the Soviet Dream

Although nearly a century has passed since the unleashing of forces that would forever change the world and become the Russian Revolution, latter-day Marxists and academics are still disputing and assessing the proclamation for a Third Revolution by the Baltic Fleet sailors at Kronstadt in 1921. Kronstadt, a strategic island naval base safeguarding the maritime access to the northern city and capital of Russia at Petrograd, was a most improbable setting for an authentic participatory democracy. Instituted by the sailors, soldiers, and civilians on an island military base; these highly disciplined, politically aware, and fervent sailors and citizens of Kronstadt were at the forefront of creating a new society grounded in the revolutionary principles of soviet democracy which continues to reverberate in the ideals of contemporary movements. The implementation of these ideals commenced with the ruthless restructuring of the fleet by the common sailors during the First Revolution in early 1917. The Kronstadt sailors removed, imprisoned, or executed the Tsarist officer class deemed to be tyrannical. Sweeping away the Tsarist officer class, the Kronstadt sailors fashioned a self-governing council and elected their own to command the ships of the Baltic fleet during the seminal period of the revolution of 1917. Deeming themselves capable of self-determination and imbued with the ideals of creating a new society without parties or rulers, the sailors of Kronstadt joined with the struggling workers of the Petrograd Soviet to serve as the vanguard of revolutionary change. With the demise of the Tsarist autocracy and failures of the subsequent Provisional Government’s policies, the Kronstadt Soviet declared for the Kronstadt Republic in July 1917. The Second Revolution of October 1917 brought Lenin’s Bolshevik party into power and ignited the Russian Civil War. Although the Kronstadters were hesitant to support and were suspect of the ultimate intentions of the Bolsheviks, their vision of realizing a soviet democracy was soon menaced by the reactionary forces of the White Army and their invading foreign allies — the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan. With much trepidation over allying with the Bolsheviks, the sailors of Kronstadt committed their military might and expertise to the defeat of the powers poised against their revolutionary ideals. By 1921, the sailors had accomplished their military mission in routing the Whites and their allies from central Russia and returned to their communal base to revitalize their democratic dream. These sons of countryside had become disillusioned with the despotic economic policies toward farmers, the consolidation of power into the hands of the Bolshevik party, and the party’s betrayal of the ideals of soviet democracy. Loyal to the cause of soviet democracy, if not to the Communist leadership, the sailors of Kronstadt drew up a set of fifteen demands to the now Communist-led Kronstadt Soviet in late February 1921. The demands included such democratic rights as: freedom of assembly and speech, equal rations for all working people, an end to the Bolshevik monopoly on power, and the cessation of the strict economic controls over the peasantry. Their independent status rejected, the sailors renounced: the privileged position of Bolsheviks within their ranks; removed party members from leadership; reestablished control over their island republic; united under the banner of "All power to the soviets, not the parties"; and proclaimed a Third Revolution. The Kronstadters — once hailed as the heroes of the revolution — were denounced by Lenin and Trotsky as traitors, counter-revolutionaries, and puppets of the Whites and foreign capitalist powers. In March of 1921, Trotsky led two assaults against the island fortress republic across the frozen sea. Kronstadt was overrun. 10,000 lives were lost. With few of a few who escaped to Finland across the ice, the Kronstadters were executed or imprisoned. With their fall, the last bastion of a soviet democratic dream for Russia was crushed. In spite of defeat, the Kronstadters had created a utopian participatory democracy template for the visionaries of the next one hundred years.