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Loading... Kronstadt, 1921by Paul Avrich
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0393007243, Hardcover)"Mr. Avrich has written the first reliable, full-scale account of the rise, course, and suppression of the Kronstadt insurrection. It is a remarkably good book, at once scholarly and readable, indispensable to the specialist and appropriate for anyone interested in the twin specters of our age, revolution and repression." -Stephen F. Cohen, The New York Times Book Review "Paul Avrich's excellent and magisterial book is a work of nonpartisan scholarship that illustrates how partisan in the best possible way nonpartisan scholarship can be. He gives us the closest examination of all the available evidence that we are likely to have for some time, and he uses his evidence to construct a narrative that, in its most brilliant passages, matches the power of Deutscher's The Prophet Armed and Moshe Lewin's Lenin's Last Struggle." -Alasdair MacIntyre, The New York Review of Books "... Paul Avrich's excellent Kronstadt 1921 [is a] judicious reconstruction, from original sources, of what really happened and why." -Dwight MacDonald, in his book Discriminations "Professor Paul Avrich's reconstruction of the events has all the ingredients of excellent historical writing: background information, sparingly but cogently presented; a mass of sources well sifted and thoroughly checked, including some newly discovered items; patient and sympathetic treatment of the arguments and counter-arguments of the protagonists; a vivid account of the events; quick portrayal of self-styled and ephemeral leaders (always a difficult thing to do); and the capacity to convey to the reader the atmosphere, flavour, and spirit of the unfolding drama." -Moshe Lewin, Soviet Studies Paul Avrich is Distinguished Professor of History, Queens College and the Graduate School, the City University of New York, and the author of many works on anarchism, including Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background, The Haymarket Tragedy, and Anarchist Portraits, all available from Princeton University Press.(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:01 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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Basically, what happened is this: following a wave of strikes and discontent in Russia caused by the repressive methods of "War Communism," the sailors at the Kronstadt naval base in the Baltic Sea published a document proposing the deconstruction of the Bolshevik Party's single-Party Dictatorship (if not necessarily the Party itself). The Bolsheviks responded by attacking the base and executing those behind this 'mutiny.' Since 1921, there has been a continuing debate between Leninists and anarchists/libertarian socialists as to whether this constituted a betrayal of the principles of socialism and the ideals of the Russian Revolution.
The Leninists claim that the Kronstadters were mutineers who needed to be "crushed by the iron hand of the proletariat." The anarchists and libertarian socialists hold that it was the Bolshevik Party itself that betrayed the Revolution and laid the base of Stalin's purges, gulags, and authoritarian dictatorship by attacking the base Leon Trotsky had once called "the Pride and Glory of the Russian Revolution."
As a result of this lasting antagonism, most histories of the uprising tend to be slanted in favor of one side or the other - but Paul Avrich here makes an attempt to cut through the partisan wrangling and establish the factual history of the base once and for all. He reaches the conclusion that the Bolsheviks reacted to Kronstadt's challenge to their authority with unnecessary intransigence and brutality, but does mention the pressures of the Russian Civil War of 1918 - 1920 to help explain their actions. Mr. Avrich also rips apart much of the official propaganda surrounding the myth of Kronstadt (for example, that the mutiny was organized and lead by a Tsarist General).
"Kronstadt, 1921" is a well-written account of one of the most important and interesting events in the history of the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Stalinist Soviet Union. Recommended reading for anyone interested in Russia or its history. Five stars. (