Kronstadt Rebellion - Petropavlovsk Resolution

Petropavlovsk Resolution

On February 26, delegates from the Kronstadt sailors visited Petrograd to investigate the situation. On February 28, in response to the delegates' report of heavy-handed Bolshevik repression of strikes in Petrograd (claims which might have been inaccurate or exaggerated), the crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol held an emergency meeting, which approved a resolution raising fifteen demands:

“
  1. Immediate new elections to the Soviets; the present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda for all workers and peasants before the elections.
  2. Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties.
  3. The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant associations.
  4. The organisation, at the latest on 10 March 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt and the Petrograd District.
  5. The liberation of all political prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all imprisoned workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class and peasant organisations.
  6. The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons and concentration camps.
  7. The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces; no political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In place of the political section, various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State.
  8. The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside.
  9. The equalisation of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs.
  10. The abolition of Party combat detachments in all military groups; the abolition of Party guards in factories and enterprises. If guards are required, they should be nominated, taking into account the views of the workers.
  11. The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil, and of the right to own cattle, provided they look after them themselves and do not employ hired labour.
  12. We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution.
  13. We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution.
  14. We demand the institution of mobile workers' control groups.
  15. We demand that handicraft production be authorised, provided it does not utilise wage labour.
 ”

On March 1, a general meeting of the garrison was held, attended also by Mikhail Kalinin and Commissar of the Soviet Baltic Fleet Nikolai Kuzmin, who made speeches for the Government. The general meeting passed a resolution including the fifteen demands given above. On March 2 a conference of sailor, soldier and worker organization delegates, after hearing speeches by Kuzmin and Vasiliev, President of the Kronstadt Executive Committee, arrested these two, and amid incorrect rumors of immediate attack approved formation of a Provisional Revolutionary Committee. The Government responded with an ultimatum the same day. This alleged that the revolt had "undoubtedly been prepared by French counterintelligence" and that the Petropavlovsk resolution was an "SR-Black Hundred" resolution. SR stood for Social Revolutionaries, a democratic socialist party that had been dominant in the soviets before the return of Vladimir Lenin, and whose right wing had refused to support the Bolsheviks. The Black Hundreds were a reactionary ultranationalist movement in Russia in the early 20th century, that were supporters of the House of Romanov and opposed any retreat from the autocracy of the reigning monarch.

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