AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD
LESSONS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF KRONSTADT
The Kronstadt movement was spontaneous, unprepared, and peaceful. That it became an armed conflict, ending in a bloody tragedy, was entirely due to the Tartar despotism of the Communist dictatorship.
Though realising the general character of the Bolsheviki, Kronstadt still had faith in the possibility of an amicable solution. It believed the Communist Government amenable to reason; it credited it with some sense of justice and liberty.
The Kronstadt experience proves once more that government, the State—whatever its name or form—is ever the mortal enemy of liberty and popular self-determination. The State has no soul, no principles. It has but one aim—to secure power and to hold it, at any cost. That is the political lesson of Kronstadt.
There is another, a strategic, lesson taught by every rebellion.
The success of an uprising is conditioned in its resoluteness, energy, and aggressiveness. The rebels have on their side the sentiment of the masses. That sentiment quickens with the rising tide of rebellion. It must not be allowed to subside, to pale by a return to the drabness of every-day life.
On the other hand, every uprising has against it the powerful machinery of the State. The Government is able to concentrate in its hands the sources of supply and the means of communication. No time must be given the Government to make use of its powers. Rebellion should be vigorous, striking unexpectedly and determinedly. It must not remain localised, for that means stagnation. It must broaden and develop. A rebellion that localises itself, plays the waiting policy, or puts itself on the defensive, is inevitably doomed to defeat.
In this regard, especially, Kronstadt repeated the fatal strategic errors of the Paris Communards. The latter did
