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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People who have Battleships, which

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Speaker 2: is the name of this show always. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Margaret Kiljoy, and with me today is my guest Mia

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Speaker 2: Hei Miya. Hello.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited for the second episode of Cool People who

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Speaker 1: Have Battleships about the Germans scuttling their entire davy because

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Speaker 1: Alder ships are about to be seized by a bunch

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Speaker 1: of leftists. Whoa wait, when was that right after World

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Speaker 1: War One? Oh?

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Speaker 2: Okay, okay, cool are not audio engineer producer is Sophie Hi, Sophie, Hi,

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Speaker 2: but our actual audio engineer is Daniel Hi. Danel Sophie.

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Speaker 2: We can't continue to see Hi, Hi, Daniel I, thank you.

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Speaker 3: You're welcome.

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Speaker 2: Our theme music is written for us by Unwoman. This

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Speaker 2: is part six where we finally get to cron stat. Hey,

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Speaker 2: and if you only are listening to this part, then

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Speaker 2: the real quick rundown. Usually I'm like, why would you

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Speaker 2: start she's just here, but you actually could kind of

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Speaker 2: just start here. The real rundown is that there has

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Speaker 2: been this revolution. There's been multiple revolutions and the whole

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Speaker 2: Civil War, and Russia has fallen to the Bolsheviks. Who

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Speaker 2: stepped in despite being a minority party, and declared themselves

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Speaker 2: to be the only party that can run the revolution

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Speaker 2: and institute of war Communism and started starving everyone. And

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Speaker 2: everyone's really unhappy about it. And people are so unhappy

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Speaker 2: about it that they had a little rebellion in nineteen

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Speaker 2: oh five, nineteen seventeen and the Civil War. The Sailors

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Speaker 2: of Kronstadt were the famous and infamous Red Sailors. They

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Speaker 2: were the most politically reliable and politicized military element of

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Speaker 2: the left in Russia. When the Tsar walked through his

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Speaker 2: own island fortress, he talked about it like he was

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Speaker 2: walking through enemy territory, which, to be fair, he was, yeah, wu,

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Speaker 2: did you have that in the script too? Oh no,

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Speaker 2: but he was, yeah, yeah. Kronstadt is a port city.

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Speaker 2: It's a whole city. I used to assume it was

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Speaker 2: like the name of a fortress. There are multiple forts

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Speaker 2: in the city of Kronstadt, which is a port city

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Speaker 2: on an island called Cotland in the Gulf of Finland.

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Speaker 2: It's less than twenty miles west of Saint Petersburg. When

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Speaker 2: the golf freezes over the winter, you can walk to

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Speaker 2: Finland from Cortland this will save Wow, more than half

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Speaker 2: of our heroes today. This actually has a much higher

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Speaker 2: survival rate than almost any rebellion like this I have covered. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: almost fifty percent. That's good. More than fifty percent. Wow,

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Speaker 2: that's yeah. Yeah, which is a better survival rate than

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Speaker 2: the Bolshevik officers who put down the rebellion. A although

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Speaker 2: some of the people who then got away to Finland,

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Speaker 2: they like come back later and some of them, like

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Speaker 2: like one of them kind of tries to spy for

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Speaker 2: both Finland and the Bolsheviks and eventually like anyway whatever.

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Speaker 2: During the February Revolution, that first revolution, the more liberal revolution,

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Speaker 2: the sailors of Cronstadt had enthusiastically been like, what if

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Speaker 2: we just kill our commanding officers and take our over

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Speaker 2: our own lives, And so then they did that. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: there's this whole like thing where like they you know,

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Speaker 2: pull the guy out and he like comes out in

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Speaker 2: his bathrobe or whatever in the morning, and he tries

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Speaker 2: to order them what you know, they like storm his

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Speaker 2: like thing, and he like comes out he does to

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Speaker 2: order them, and they're like they just laugh at him

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Speaker 2: and then arrest him. Incredible. Yeah, the Sailors of Cronschat

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Speaker 2: were the elite. They were the shock troops of the revolution.

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Speaker 2: They actually that's not a later thing that they get called.

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Speaker 2: They actually are referred to the as shock troops, even

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Speaker 2: in direct translations of primary sources. Trotsky had called them

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Speaker 2: the pride of the revolution. One thing they'd never been, though,

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Speaker 2: was particularly interested in Bolshevism. Anarchism was a strong tendency there,

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Speaker 2: but it was mostly that thing that I keep hitting

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Speaker 2: home politically, pluralist socialism. They were srs the Bolsheviks, they

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Speaker 2: were anarchists. Part of why they'd been the shock troops

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Speaker 2: is that they were reliable, competent, and politically engaged. But frankly,

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Speaker 2: part of why they'd been the shock troops is because

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Speaker 2: Bolsheviks again and again put all of the non Bolsheviks

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Speaker 2: socialists at the front of every engagement because they wanted

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Speaker 2: them to die first. Famously lead from the back types

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Speaker 2: the Bolshevik leaders, which is ironic to their claim to

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Speaker 2: be a vanguard. Usually you imagine the vanguard being at

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Speaker 2: the van, which means the front. But you know, ah,

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Speaker 2: but that's where you're wrong. The most politically advance must

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Speaker 2: stand at the back of the line. So exactly one

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Speaker 2: of the incidents. The Kronchet Sailors have been involved in

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Speaker 2: all of it, from the July Days, that early uprising

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Speaker 2: in nineteen seventeen, to the October Revolution to the dissolution

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Speaker 2: of the Constituent Assembly. It was actually an arcosynicalist who led.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 2: I want to say the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly

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Speaker 2: as a military action, and maybe the October Revolution as well,

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Speaker 2: but I'm not one hundred percent certain about that, because

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Speaker 2: I took a bigger picture instead of writing down names,

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Speaker 2: which totally isn't related to how hard to pronounce the

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Speaker 2: names are. It was just because I wanted to do

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Speaker 2: a big picture. I swear they were also involved in

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Speaker 2: fighting the Whites in the Civil War, but all along

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Speaker 2: they'd refuse to just accept Bolshevik centralization of power. They

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Speaker 2: quite liked being equals to one another, electing their own

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Speaker 2: officers and not taking Czarist officers back into their ranks,

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Speaker 2: thank you very much. All throughout the Civil War, sailors

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Speaker 2: of Kronshet left the Bolshevik Party. It had been a

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Speaker 2: sizable minority at first, but in nineteen twenty by in

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Speaker 2: like April nineteen twenty, out of about I want to

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Speaker 2: say about fifteen thousand sailors or so, five six hundred

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Speaker 2: and thirty of them were Bolshevik Party members in April

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty. By the end of nineteen twenty, only two

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Speaker 2: two hundred and twenty eight of them were still members

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Speaker 2: of the Bolshevik Party. Jeez, because they saw what was

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Speaker 2: happening and they didn't like it. Wow, that's yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: So by January nineteen twenty one, they ousted the Bolshevik

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Speaker 2: Commander in chief, whom they'd never much cared for. Basically,

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Speaker 2: like the Bolsheviks were like, hey, the guy who Margaret

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Speaker 2: didn't write down the name of go take over, And

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Speaker 2: they were like, we don't really like that, and so

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Speaker 2: then they kicked him out. They wanted power to remain

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Speaker 2: within their own Soviet, their own Democratic Assembly. Later, Leon

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Speaker 2: Trotsky made all kinds of hay out of the idea

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Speaker 2: that the Revolting Sailors weren't the real Red Sailors. They'd

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Speaker 2: all been cycled out. These were just some new guys,

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Speaker 2: you know, they didn't even deserve a stolen valor really

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Speaker 2: for them to claim to be the shock troops of

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Speaker 2: the revolution. So because of those kinds of lies, historians

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Speaker 2: have had to put in a lot of work to

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Speaker 2: track down like all the individual people, the overwhelming majority

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Speaker 2: of them, of the people who revolted were veterans of

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Speaker 2: the revolution. So the crew of two battleships, which were

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Speaker 2: trapped in the ice but had plenty of artillery, sent

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Speaker 2: a delegation to Saint Petersburg to figure out what the

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Speaker 2: fuck was going on with all these strikes and stuff

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Speaker 2: that are happening, right, and so they brought back a worker.

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Speaker 2: This delegation came back like three days later, this is

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Speaker 2: the end of February nineteen twenty one, and the worker

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Speaker 2: told them, quote, since you are from Cronstadt, with which

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Speaker 2: they frightened us all the time, and you want to

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Speaker 2: know the truth, here it is. We are starving, We

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Speaker 2: have no shoes and no clothes. We are physically and

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Speaker 2: morally terrorized. Each and every one of our requests and

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Speaker 2: demands is met by the authorities with terror, terror, endless terror.

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Speaker 2: Look at the prisons of Petrograd and you will see

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Speaker 2: how many of our comrades sit there after being arrested

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Speaker 2: in the last three days, No comrades. The time has

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Speaker 2: come to tell the communists openly, you have spoken enough

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Speaker 2: on our behalf down with your dictatorship, which has landed

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Speaker 2: us in this blind alley. Make way for non party men.

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Speaker 2: Long live, freely elected soviets. They alone can take us

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Speaker 2: out of this mess. And this is the core of

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Speaker 2: what they are fighting for. And Cronstadt, they are fighting

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Speaker 2: for non party rule. So it's you know, like people

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Speaker 2: who write history want it to be like, oh, well

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Speaker 2: it was the Mensheviks, or it was the SRS, or

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Speaker 2: even like you know, I have this like instinct room,

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Speaker 2: like all the anarchists did everything cool, Like no it

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Speaker 2: was not. I mean, the anarchist is in a political party,

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Speaker 2: but it's like not not a fult. You know, they

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Speaker 2: don't run for office, but there they have an ideology

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Speaker 2: and they ascribe to it, you know, and they're just like, well,

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Speaker 2: we want this dictatorship thing didn't work. We want to

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Speaker 2: be done with it. We want our soviets. Yeah, we

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Speaker 2: want the thing we fought in the revolution for. Yeah

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Speaker 2: that six to twelve million of us died for. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And so the people of Kronschat mostly the military, but

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Speaker 2: there's a whole town there too, and they all work together.

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Speaker 2: They were like, okay, fuck it, it is time for

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Speaker 2: what they called the third Revolution of the toilers. I

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Speaker 2: more modern translations use laborers, and I think that's a

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Speaker 2: better translation, but they mean the peasants and the workers.

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Speaker 2: And also I think often in cronschat they're also talking

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Speaker 2: about the soldiers as like the three groups. Makes sense. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Later the Bolsheviks are going to claim that it's a

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Speaker 2: white army plot, an attempt to reverse the revolution. It

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Speaker 2: was not. It was an attempt to save it. And

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Speaker 2: so they got together and they passed a resolution with

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Speaker 2: fifteen demands, and I'm going to read the whole thing

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Speaker 2: because I think it really gives a sense of what

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Speaker 2: people were fighting for and what they were willing to

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Speaker 2: die for. One, in view of the fact that the

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Speaker 2: present Soviets do not express the will of the workers

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Speaker 2: and the peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret

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Speaker 2: ballot the pre election campaign. To have full freedom of

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Speaker 2: agitation among the workers and peasants. Two to establish freedom

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Speaker 2: of speech and press for workers and peasants, for anarchists

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Speaker 2: and left socialist parties. Three to secure freedom of assembly

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Speaker 2: for labor unions and peasant organizations. Four to call a

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Speaker 2: nonpartisan conference of the workers, Red Army, soldiers and sailors

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Speaker 2: of Petrograd, Cronstadt and of Petrograd Province no later than

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Speaker 2: March tenth, nineteen twenty one. Five To liberate all political

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Speaker 2: prisoners of socialist parties, as well as all workers, peasants,

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Speaker 2: soldiers and sailors imprisoned in connection with the labor and

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Speaker 2: peasant movements. Six to elect a commission to review the

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Speaker 2: cases of those held in prisons and concentration camps. Seven

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Speaker 2: to abolish all the politelli deli the political sections of

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Speaker 2: the armed forces, because no party should be given special

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Speaker 2: privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive the

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Speaker 2: financial support of the government for such purposes. Instead, there

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Speaker 2: should be established educational and cultural commissions, locally elected and

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Speaker 2: financed by the government. Eight to abolish immediately all the

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Speaker 2: Bolshevik units armed to suppress traffic and confiscate food. Nine

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Speaker 2: to equalize the rations of all who work, with the

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Speaker 2: exception of those employed in trades detrimental to health. Ten

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Speaker 2: to abolish the Bolshevik fighting detachments in all branches of

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Speaker 2: the army, as well as the Bolshevik guards kept on

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Speaker 2: duty in mills and factories. Should such guards or military

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Speaker 2: detachments to be found necessary. They are to be appointed

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Speaker 2: in the army from the ranks and in the factories

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Speaker 2: according to the judgment of the workers. Eleven to give

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Speaker 2: the peasants full freedom of action in regard to their land,

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Speaker 2: and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that

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Speaker 2: the peasants manage with their own means, that is, without

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Speaker 2: employing hired labor. Twelve to request all branches of the army,

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Speaker 2: as well as our comrades in the military Cussanti, which

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Speaker 2: is like a youth cadet corps in the Red Army,

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Speaker 2: to concur in our resolutions. Thirteen to demand that the

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Speaker 2: press give the fullest publicity to our resolutions. Fourteen to

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Speaker 2: appoint a traveling Commission of Control, and fifteen to permit free,

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Speaker 2: individual small scale production by one's own efforts. So they

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Speaker 2: wanted a quality. They wanted freedom of the press, they

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Speaker 2: wanted the ability for people to work their own land

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Speaker 2: as long as they weren't exploiting people by wage labor.

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Speaker 2: They just they wanted to not be tweend like shit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean one of the things I think

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Speaker 1: is really funny that like one of the things that

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Speaker 1: people yell about this is like, oh, these people there

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Speaker 1: were small business owners. They wanted to bring individual production back,

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Speaker 1: and like that's just not what they're talking about. But also,

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Speaker 1: be Lenin is going to literally do that in about

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Speaker 1: one year, so like a couple months actually, yeah, like

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Speaker 1: a moth. So it's like, if you're going to hold

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Speaker 1: that position, you also have to hold that Lenin is

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Speaker 1: a kind of revolutionary, which I guess, yeah, someone somewhere

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Speaker 1: holds that position, which would be really funny, right, But yeah,

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Speaker 1: these are I mean just genuinely, these are not even

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Speaker 1: particularly radical demands. These are demands that the revolution that

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Speaker 1: everyone was promised actually happened.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that they won militarily, you know, they get the

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Speaker 2: thing that they won, that's what they want. Yeah. No,

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Speaker 2: And I mean I remember the first time I read

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Speaker 2: this a long time ago, the thing that actually really

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Speaker 2: did stick out was the you know, give peasants full

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Speaker 2: freedom of action in regard to their land as long

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Speaker 2: as they manage it themselves without employee hired labor. And

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Speaker 2: it like gets that one of these core things that's

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Speaker 2: interesting to me about rather than forced collectivization, the thing

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Speaker 2: that theoretically the broadest chunk of anti capitalism is against

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Speaker 2: is the exploitation of other people's labor, not the idea

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Speaker 2: of producing something on a small scale yourself for a market.

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Speaker 2: You know a lot of these people like, yeah, they're like, well,

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Speaker 2: there's this thing that happened in the Spanish Civil War,

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Speaker 2: which we've talked about a lot, right, is that you know,

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Speaker 2: when the anarchists went around and collectivized farms, they didn't

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Speaker 2: force collectivization on small family farms by and large, to

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Speaker 2: my knowledge, I have feeling that they probably every now

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Speaker 2: and then did because no one's perfect. And then overall

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Speaker 2: what would happen is about a year later, all of

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Speaker 2: the small family farms were like, you know what, actually

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Speaker 2: we do want to collectivize because they looked over and

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Speaker 2: they're like, that's actually more efficient to work together. Right,

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Speaker 2: But no one is making you. What they're making you

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Speaker 2: do is stop exploiting people by being the employer who

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Speaker 2: takes profit off of other people's labor. So, yeah, there's

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Speaker 2: something like this.

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Speaker 1: That happens in China too. We're like China, it's more

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Speaker 1: by force, but people aren't really mad about it. It's

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Speaker 1: like a six stage process, and the first five stages

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Speaker 1: of it are effectively all these really really small petty

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Speaker 1: farmers like combined their tools and their cows and now

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Speaker 1: there's like twelve cows.

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Speaker 2: Instead of everyone having one cow, the group has.

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Speaker 1: And then the part where everything completely goes to shit

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Speaker 1: and you start getting like mass resistance where everyone starts dying.

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Speaker 1: It was stage six of it, where the communists are like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: by the way, you don't control this anymore. Now the

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Speaker 1: size of the commune and people working together is like

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Speaker 1: I don't remember the exact number, it's basically like the

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Speaker 1: size of the city. And also instead of the peasants

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Speaker 1: being people who are like working together the run to thing,

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Speaker 1: all of you are now like under the command of

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Speaker 1: some guy from the party.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: That's when like really truly the famines start, because everything

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Speaker 1: just completely goes to shit, and it's like, right, it

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Speaker 1: gets into this fundamental question of like what actually is communism? Right,

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Speaker 1: Like is communism like you know, something that was consistent

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Speaker 1: even with sort of Maoist principles, right of like stage

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Speaker 1: five where everyone has just pulled their stuff together and

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Speaker 1: they're this isn't even like an anarchist thing, this is

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Speaker 1: specifically a Maoist project, right, They have a sort of

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Speaker 1: functioning system that people are happy with, which is all

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Speaker 1: of these people in a town work.

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Speaker 2: Together collectivization or cooperativization or whatever. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're the people making the decisions and like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a party and they want grain for stuff. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but that like worked and was popular. But then you know,

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Speaker 1: because all of these people have this like unbelievable ideological

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Speaker 1: obsession with like mass state control and having one guy

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Speaker 1: from the party running everything, it just goes to shit.

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Speaker 1: And it's like this is literally the thing if you

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Speaker 1: want to talk about, like, yeah, what completely destroyed the

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Speaker 1: Chinese Revolution, It's like it's like this, it's you did

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Speaker 1: this thing and all of the peasants starved, and then

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Speaker 1: all the peasants did decollectivization because they were like, well,

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Speaker 1: collectorization means that like this the state, like this guy,

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Speaker 1: the state bureaucrat, takes everything we've ever done. Steals are grain,

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Speaker 1: and we start right. And so they're like, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: why not do capitalism because the alternative is that And

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Speaker 1: it's just like you could have just avoided this all

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Speaker 1: if you just let them alone for like one year.

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Speaker 2: But no, yeah, no, yeah, I mean it's the difference

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Speaker 2: I think we talked about in an earlier episode, or

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Speaker 2: it's later in this script. I've been so lost in

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Speaker 2: these words for the past many weeks that I'm not

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Speaker 2: entirely or is the different things like socialization and nationalization, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know, like does everyone get workers control or does

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Speaker 2: everyone get top down authority telling them what to do?

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Speaker 2: And like collectivization can be part of socialization, Like collectives

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Speaker 2: are really good ways to get stuff done, Like speaking

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Speaker 2: to someone who lives alone, I can't farm my bakriage

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Speaker 2: like Rentraw's not going to do it, you know, it's

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Speaker 2: nice to work with people. Yeah, And for the crush

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Speaker 2: that of sailors, it was less like the thing we

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Speaker 2: want is small crafters and farmers to be able to

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Speaker 2: do stuff. What they want is to have the freedom

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Speaker 2: to kind of figure it out as long as they're

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Speaker 2: not oppressing people, you know. Yeah, Like all of these values,

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Speaker 2: the different demands are different for different people. That's why

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Speaker 2: they're like, well, we want freedom of press for the

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Speaker 2: anarchists and the left socialists who don't agree about everything.

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Speaker 1: No, Yeah, And I think the other important thing is

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Speaker 1: like not forcing these people to work at gunpoint yeah, totally,

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Speaker 1: which is what's happening now.

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Speaker 2: Totally. It's actually one of the things that I talk

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Speaker 2: about a lot is that I'm like, look, you can

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Speaker 2: point a gun at someone's head and say you are

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Speaker 2: now a communist. You cannot point a gun at someone's

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Speaker 2: head and say you are now an anarchist. All you

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Speaker 2: can do is point a gun at someone's head and

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Speaker 2: say I am now an anarchist. You don't get to

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Speaker 2: make me be a Bolshevik anymore or whatever. You know. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and in this case, the guns that they have are

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Speaker 2: really big, and they're on battleship. Yes, always have battleships. Actually,

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Speaker 2: probably not anymore. They're getting worse, So wet anarchists care

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Speaker 2: about battleships. Yes, ACAB that's what that stands for.

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Speaker 1: Anyways, I'm gonna do my plug here for it could

341
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Speaker 1: happen here a podcast where we had two episodes about

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Speaker 1: a modern irregular naval warfare, which you should go listen

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Speaker 1: to because they're really fun.

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Speaker 2: They are really good. And uh and you know what

345
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:06,640
Speaker 2: else you should listen to, is it these products and services? Yeah, totally,

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Speaker 2: don't press forward fifteen seconds a bunch of times, never

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Speaker 2: do that here you go and we're back, and so

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Speaker 2: much like the ads you just heard, the slogans of

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Speaker 2: the Cronschat sailors were things like all power to the

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Speaker 2: Soviets and not to parties, and down with the counter

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Speaker 2: revolution of the left and the right, and my favorite slogan,

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Speaker 2: it's a little long for a slogan, but it's clever.

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Speaker 2: Lenin said, communism is Soviet power plus electrification. But the

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Speaker 2: people have become convinced that the Bolshevik communism is comisocracy

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Speaker 2: plus executions. That is, you can't chat that. But it's not. No,

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Speaker 2: it's not the worst I will, okay, but hear me out.

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Speaker 2: The best chance I have ever pulled off in my life.

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Speaker 2: My crowning moment as a political actor in this world

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Speaker 2: came more than twenty years ago now, at an anti

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Speaker 2: globalization demonstration where I got a black block that was

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Speaker 2: in the middle of you know, dragging things into the

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Speaker 2: street in order to prevent traffic from coming to this

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Speaker 2: meeting where people were talking about how to rule and

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Speaker 2: rule the world and things. And I managed to get

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Speaker 2: a pretty large group of people, like the entire block,

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Speaker 2: to chant, what do we want? A free association of

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Speaker 2: cooperative autonomous groups for the purpose of mutual aid. When

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Speaker 2: do we want it now? My finest hour incredible. My

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Speaker 2: best one is solo school. For that.

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Speaker 1: I got an entire occupied airport at O'Hare to chant

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Speaker 1: build a fence around Mike Pence. I'm happy about that.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty good. It's catchier than mine, I gotta admit,

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Speaker 2: but I've always liked absurdity.

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Speaker 1: Yes.

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Speaker 2: Anyway, By most analyzes, this Kronschat rebellion was doomed from

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Speaker 2: the start because they were doing it in solidarity with

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Speaker 2: the workers in the larger cities. But those worker uprisings

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Speaker 2: were put down right around the time that the Kronschat

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Speaker 2: rebellion kicked off. There's not much of an overlap between

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Speaker 2: those two groups. If the Kronschat sailors had been doing

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Speaker 2: what they were trying to do, it could have gone

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Speaker 2: real interesting, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they'd been like like a week earlier or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but they were largely alone. It kicked off

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Speaker 2: on March first, when fifteen thousand people from Kronstat gathered

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Speaker 2: to heckle the President of the Soviet Republic, the formal

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Speaker 2: head of it, this guy named Kalinin, and they basically

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Speaker 2: scared him off and then stepped up and people started

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Speaker 2: stating their grievances, and the rally itself ratified the fifteen

390
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Speaker 2: demands that had been come up with. I think maybe

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Speaker 2: the night before even those two thousand dish rank and

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Speaker 2: file Bolsheviks agreed to these fifteen demands, except three hundred

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Speaker 2: tried to stop them and did wind up arrested during

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Speaker 2: this third revolution. So they re elected their local Soviet

395
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Speaker 2: and declared a revolt. They took over the entire city

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Speaker 2: without a single shot fired. All of the forts and

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Speaker 2: ships signed on to this. Right away. The Bolsheviks are like,

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Speaker 2: it's a White army plot, but also right away, by

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Speaker 2: March third, the first naval air squadron at another nearby

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Speaker 2: town of Oranabaum was like, fuck, yeah, fifteen points, we

401
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Speaker 2: are down. They formed a revolutionary committee. They sent three

402
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Speaker 2: folks across the ice to meet it up a Kronstat

403
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Speaker 2: and the Red Army came and rounded them up and

404
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Speaker 2: forty five of them was shot, and that revolt was

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Speaker 2: suppressed within hours. But Kronschat itself was not so easily defeated.

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Speaker 2: This part's going to shock you. They put out a

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Speaker 2: daily newspaper. Yeah, I think I've.

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Speaker 3: Heard about this paper, but like an like I kind

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Speaker 3: of want to like be vaguely silly about it, but like,

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Speaker 3: by putting out a daily paper, they are keeping everyone

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Speaker 3: informed about what's going on.

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Speaker 2: It is actually a like really important practical thing, you know.

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Speaker 2: And the tone of this paper all throughout is optimistic.

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Speaker 2: I don't think you can then say that all of

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Speaker 2: the sailors were always optimistic themselves, because it is the

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Speaker 2: job of this newspaper to not and still doom, you know. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: So I can't say, like, oh, I know totally how

418
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Speaker 2: they were all feeling because of their newspaper, but it's

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Speaker 2: still indicative. It's still interesting. The first issue announced our

420
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Speaker 2: country is enduring a difficult moment. Hunger, cold and economic

421
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Speaker 2: ruin have held us in an iron vice these three years. Already,

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Speaker 2: the Communist Party which rules the country has become separated

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Speaker 2: from the masses and shown itself unable to lead her

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Speaker 2: from her state of general ruin. It has not face

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Speaker 2: the reality of the disturbances which in recent times have

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Speaker 2: occurred in Petrograd and Moscow. This unrest shows clearly enough

427
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Speaker 2: that the party has lost the faith of the working masses.

428
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 2: Neither has it recognized the demands presented by the workers,

429
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 2: it considers them plots of the counter revolution. It is

430
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 2: deeply mistaken. This unrest, these demands are the voice of

431
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 2: the people in its entirety, of all laborers, all workers,

432
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,480
Speaker 2: sailors and soldiers. See clearly at the present moment that

433
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,399
Speaker 2: only through common effort, by the common will of the laborers,

434
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:32,399
Speaker 2: is it possible to give the country bread, wood and coal,

435
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 2: to dress the barefoot and naked, to lead the republic

436
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 2: out of this dead end.

437
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the things that I always thought

438
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:44,359
Speaker 1: was so sort of I don't know, like their tone

439
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: is really cheerful, and I think what's so bleak about

440
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:51,640
Speaker 1: it is that this isn't even that radical of a thing.

441
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, we're trying to put shoes on people's

442
00:25:55,480 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 1: feet and put bread on their tables, and we think

443
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: that like the party autocracy can't do that. Yeah, and

444
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: for this, they're you know, labeled as traders and like

445
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,880
Speaker 1: reactionaries and white army. Like I think at some point

446
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 1: they start getting accused of being like an international plot

447
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: or something. For over one hundred years, like they've labeled this.

448
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was immediate that they started trying to label

449
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 2: it this way. I didn't end up put it in

450
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:27,840
Speaker 2: the script that like ins and outs of it. A

451
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 2: lot of people who write about it have to put

452
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 2: in the following ins and outs because they're trying to

453
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,640
Speaker 2: convince people who have been sold Bolshevik propaganda for eighty

454
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:38,200
Speaker 2: years or whatever, right, oh, more than a hundred years ago.

455
00:26:38,200 --> 00:26:42,479
Speaker 2: Now right away they dredged up this newspaper from a

456
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 2: different western country that was like the sailors of Crunched

457
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 2: Out have rebelled. But it was just like some random

458
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 2: incorrect guests, you know, from like weeks earlier or whatever.

459
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 2: And so a lot of people have done a lot

460
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 2: of work to like check to see if it was

461
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 2: a White Army plot, and it wasn't.

462
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 1: No, It's like, how on earth would the White Army

463
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: have had agents in Kronstat Like, yeah, what, I'm pretty

464
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: sure their closest army in this point in nineteen twenty

465
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: one is in Siberia? Is that the only one left

466
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: at this point too? Also like yeah, I'm pretty sure

467
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: literally the last thing they have is is like Coldsruck

468
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:15,480
Speaker 1: and Siberia.

469
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 2: And it's like, yeah, what this makes no sense? No,

470
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 2: But it was an effective way to convince the people. Yeah,

471
00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:27,399
Speaker 2: like overall, what won was the propaganda. The control of

472
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:31,239
Speaker 2: the flow of information rather than a military was the

473
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 2: more important thing that defeated Kronstak. On March fourth, the

474
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 2: Petrograd Soviet, which is under Bolshevik control, voted to force

475
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 2: cronshadt to surrender. Emma Goldman was at this meeting and

476
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 2: witnessed it. A worker stood up in that meeting and

477
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 2: despite heckling, despite the obvious risk to his life, he

478
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 2: faced the Bolshevik party boss and said, quote, we the

479
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 2: workers and sailors protected you and helped you to power.

480
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:00,080
Speaker 2: Now you denounce us and are ready to attack us

481
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 2: with arms. And then a sailor spoke up and read

482
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,439
Speaker 2: the Kronstadt resolution and begged the Communists not to engage

483
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 2: in fratricide. Bolshevik radio is announcing a cronschat's been taken

484
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,240
Speaker 2: over by a white general. Emma Goldman and others are

485
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 2: desperately trying to counter that. They write a letter to

486
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 2: the Bolsheviks begging to let a commission of five people,

487
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 2: two of them anarchists, be dispatched to Kronstadt to negotiate peace.

488
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 2: So even the anarchists on the outside are like Kronstad,

489
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 2: it's our people, let's go. They're like, oh fuck, we're

490
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 2: gonna lose. We need to try and make this work.

491
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 2: And the Bolsheviks are like nah. Specifically, Trotsky writes a

492
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 2: piece called a Last Warning to the garrison and inhabitants

493
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 2: of Kronstadt and the mutinous forts. It says, quote, only

494
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 2: those who surrender unconditionally may count on the mercy of

495
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 2: the Soviet Republic. Responsibility for the harm that may consequently

496
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 2: be suffered by the peaceful population will fall entirely upon

497
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 2: the heads of the counter revolutionary mutineers. This warning is final.

498
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 2: Which is the most classic thing that I hate about

499
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 2: authoritarian military forces is the if we have to bomb

500
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 2: a civilian center, it's your fault. Yeah, you know, I

501
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 2: mean it's it's literally the moss it's your fault. Yeah.

502
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: It's like indistinguishable from their proclamation bind Israeli general, like indistinguished,

503
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: or like an other American talking about chok and Awe

504
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: in Iraq or something like.

505
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, or it's the Japanese emperor's fault that the

506
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 2: US dropped nukes on Japan. Yeah, And speaking of their

507
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:39,479
Speaker 2: lack of care about people and justice. They start rounding

508
00:29:39,520 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 2: up the Bolsheviks, start rounding up the families of participants

509
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 2: in the big cities and holding them hostage. Meanwhile, in Cronstadt,

510
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 2: the regular workers were armed by the soldiers and they

511
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 2: work to ensure their own democracy. Immediately, they expanded the

512
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 2: RevCom the Revolutionary Committee, from five to fifteen members, and

513
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 2: they would like post the names, the like employment of

514
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:03,640
Speaker 2: each of the people in all of the newspaper issues

515
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,959
Speaker 2: and be like, hey, like we're accountable delegates. You know.

516
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 2: The de facto head of this committee is an anarcho

517
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 2: syndicalist named Petrichenko who had grown up an iron worker

518
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 2: and then joined the navy, and he had fought in

519
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 2: the revolution under the red and black flag. Does another

520
00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 2: thing that I run across as people think that the

521
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 2: only anarchist fighting in the Russian Civil War was Makno's

522
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 2: Black Army, and it's just not the case.

523
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: I think part of that assidue with the casualty rate

524
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: of the anarchist fighting is so high, because you know,

525
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: there are the people actually doing the fighting at the front. Yeah,

526
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 1: And I think that's contributed a lot to the way

527
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: that people think about this as just a sort of

528
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 1: like Ukrainian thing.

529
00:30:42,040 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 2: Well, and it's also like we're constantly erased from history

530
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,200
Speaker 2: every chance they can, and there's certain things that they

531
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 2: cannot successfully erase, and so that's like all that's left.

532
00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 2: And you can't deny the existence of Makno and the

533
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 2: anarchist territory in Ukraine. You can just basically call everyone

534
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 2: in the Red Army Bolshevik, even if some of them

535
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 2: were explicitly anarchists fighting under a red and black flag.

536
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:05,920
Speaker 2: And also I think Left s rs and stuff. I

537
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 2: know less about the Left s rs in general because

538
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:14,400
Speaker 2: there's so many books about this shit. Yeah, so the

539
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 2: Revolutionary Committee put out some decrees, you know, it wasn't

540
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 2: like perfect absolute freedom within rebelling cronstat no one can

541
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 2: leave town was one of the big ones, because they're

542
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 2: afraid of well, they're afraid of the Bolsheviks leaving and

543
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 2: going and like reporting on everything out to the to

544
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 2: the Bolsheviks on the outside. They put in place at

545
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 2: eleven o'clock curfew, which is four hours later than the

546
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 2: seven pm curfew that is happening in Saint Petersburg at

547
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 2: this time, you know, because they're expecting to be invaded,

548
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 2: but also part of these decrees included trying to limit

549
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 2: their own revolutionary power. They included things like, quote, it

550
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 2: is ordered that during searches of organizations of whatever party,

551
00:31:56,640 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 2: nothing is to be removed or stolen, which is basically

552
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 2: them saying like, look, we're probably going to search the

553
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 2: Bolshevik party headquarters, but we're not going to be dicks

554
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 2: about it. Most of the arrested Bolsheviks, those who had

555
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 2: tried to stop the takeover the town, were released and

556
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 2: were like continued to allow to live their lives within

557
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 2: croun Shot, and those who are imprisoned are told that

558
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 2: there is no death penalty waiting for them. The rebels

559
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 2: take on a new slogan in response to Trotsky's warning,

560
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 2: victory or death. Their newspaper runs emphatic and beautiful statements

561
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 2: by former Bolsheviks who are rejoining the ranks of the revolution,

562
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,520
Speaker 2: and I have like the first couple I read were

563
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 2: like really like, WHOA, that's really powerful. I mean, they're

564
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 2: not arresting the Bolsheviks, who aren't you know, it's not

565
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 2: illegal to be a Bolshevik within Cronstad at this point,

566
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 2: but it's like pretty frowned upon so like it's not

567
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,479
Speaker 2: necessarily I think that these mostly read as very honest

568
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 2: denunciations of their former Bolshevik past. And my favorite is

569
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 2: that they would like run reports were like the following

570
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 2: hundred Bolsheviks have written us and signed and said we

571
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 2: no longer want to be Bolsheviks, and then one guy

572
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: wrote in to be like, I demand a retraction. I

573
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 2: left the Bolshevik party a year ago, like incredible, And

574
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 2: there was a lot of people like that, right because

575
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 2: a lot of people had quit being Bolsheviks and cronshtak

576
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 2: once they saw what was happening, and they're just like

577
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 2: really interesting. On March seventh, Trotsky ordered artillery to start

578
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 2: shelling Kronstadt. Cronstadt started shelling right back. It could be

579
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 2: heard from Saint Petersburg, where Alexander Berkman wrote in his diary.

580
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:36,680
Speaker 2: I've seen that maybe he wrote this a few days later.

581
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 2: I've read both days of anguish and cannonading. My heart

582
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 2: is numb with despair. Something has died within me. The

583
00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 2: people on the street look bowed with grief, bewildered. No

584
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 2: one trusts himself to speak. The thunder of heavy guns

585
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 2: rend the air, and again that's not in Kronschat. That's

586
00:33:55,400 --> 00:34:00,960
Speaker 2: in Petrograd. Saint Petersburg. Mass arrests continue in Saint Petersburg,

587
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 2: which is under martial law. The quick version of this

588
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 2: whole thing is that the revolts had been put down

589
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 2: in Saint Petersburg and then Cronschat pops off. But there

590
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 2: is overlap. People do continue, you know, and so they're

591
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 2: still mass arresting in Saint Petersburg. Seven pm curfew, no

592
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 2: feeder or assemblies, no passenger trains, only military trains. Meanwhile,

593
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 2: morale remains high in Cronstadt. They print in their paper

594
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 2: that day a piece titled we are not taking revenge.

595
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,239
Speaker 2: The long oppression of the communist dictatorship over the laborers

596
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 2: has called forth the completely natural indignation of the masses.

597
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 2: As a result of this, the boycott or removal from

598
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 2: service of communists relatives has been adopted in several places.

599
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 2: This must not be we are not taking revenge, but

600
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 2: defending our laboring interests. It is necessary to act with

601
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 2: restraint and to remove only those who strive to sabotage

602
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 2: or slanderous agitation to interfere with the restoration of the

603
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 2: power and rights of the laborers.

604
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:08,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's such a studying in contrast to the Soviets

605
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,280
Speaker 1: being like, yeah, we're gonna kidnap your families and threaten

606
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:12,040
Speaker 1: to kill them.

607
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 2: Like, and these people are like, don't boycott that guy's

608
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:19,319
Speaker 2: brother just because he's in jail, you know, Like yeah,

609
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:22,720
Speaker 2: people all the time talk about how, oh, during revolution

610
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 2: and war, you're just gonna have to leave some of

611
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 2: your morality behind. Fuck that. Like, I love how many

612
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 2: times throughout history people have looked at this and been like,

613
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 2: how do we minimize civilian casualties? How do we make

614
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 2: sure that the aggression that we are using, the violence

615
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,720
Speaker 2: that we are using, does not spiral out of control?

616
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:48,839
Speaker 2: What systems can we put in place to minimize that?

617
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 2: Like we are asked to do that as people who choose, Like,

618
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 2: if you are in a revolution and you choose to

619
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,880
Speaker 2: use violence, I believe that we are asked morally to

620
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 2: be very aware of where the limits of the violence

621
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 2: needs to be.

622
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think a lot of that is you know,

623
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: like the people who like now are talking about like

624
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: a necessity of this, and it's like, this is not

625
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 1: about the necessity of this. This is about the fact

626
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:18,400
Speaker 1: that you want to do violence and you need to

627
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: find a sort of rationale for doing it. And because

628
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 1: you live in a suburb, you don't have an outlet

629
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: for sort of like your blood loss, and that's probably

630
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: a good thing, but you know, you've chosen this as

631
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: your outlet. And it's like, well, I don't think you're

632
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: actually making a sort of philosophical statement here. I think

633
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:37,360
Speaker 1: you just want to kill people and you should maybe

634
00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 1: think about that and attempt to not. Yeah, because it's

635
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: not good for you. According to the crownschet Sailors, no

636
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: one is up against the wall like the arrested Bolsheviks

637
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: who are trying to stop them are imprisoned so that

638
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,879
Speaker 1: they can't continue to do that, you know, And that's it.

639
00:36:57,239 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 1: You know what else is a complicated moral decision to

640
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:03,400
Speaker 1: make engaging with an economic system that's destroying the world.

641
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:07,360
Speaker 1: But here we are doing it because it's that or starve.

642
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: Here you go, and we're back from that incredible series

643
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,240
Speaker 1: of ads with a beautiful ad transition by the highly

644
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 1: skilled Margaret Kiljoy. So on March eighth, what would be

645
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 1: the funniest battle in history if it were not the

646
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 1: tragic loss of life happens March eighth, nineteen twenty one,

647
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: the Red Army gathers up twenty thousand soldiers to storm

648
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 1: a well fortified city that's like bristling with battleships, that

649
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 1: has fifteen thousand of the most skilled combatants in.

650
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: The Russian Army. This did not go well. Behind the

651
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 2: starving low morale. Soldiers in the Red Army were machine

652
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 2: gunners from the Cheka with orders to shoot anyone who

653
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,720
Speaker 2: doesn't charge across the ice to defeat their own comments. Christ,

654
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 2: that is the image of Bolshevism. Yeah, nothing says it

655
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 2: more than that in my mind. When at all possible,

656
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 2: avoid charging across the ice against a fortress that has

657
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 2: artillery a fuck ton. I've read scores, I've seen hundreds.

658
00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 2: No one's really sure. A fuck ton of Red Army

659
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 2: soldiers just disappear through the ice to meet their watery

660
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 2: graves because you don't have to hit a soldier with

661
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 2: a shell, you just have to it near enough on

662
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 2: the ice. Yeah.

663
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:38,640
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of a worse possible thing you

664
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 1: could attempt to do a charge in our chilling. Maybe

665
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: they directly ordered you to like walk over lava. Yeah,

666
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: that's like slightly worse than trying to charge a bunch

667
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: of archillry over an ice field. But it's not that

668
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:50,839
Speaker 1: much worse.

669
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 2: I know. And the only way that they did it

670
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:55,320
Speaker 2: is by having the check out behind them with machine guns,

671
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:55,799
Speaker 2: you know.

672
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

673
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 2: Hundreds of Red Army soldiers died, two Crunch statters were injured.

674
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 2: And it was March eighth, International Women's Day, so even

675
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:12,399
Speaker 2: in the middle of being attacked, they took the time

676
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: to shout out women in their paper that day. Quote,

677
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,279
Speaker 2: today is a worldwide holiday, the Day of the Working Women.

678
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 2: We the people of Cronstadt, under the thunder of cannons,

679
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 2: under the explosion of shells sent at us by the

680
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 2: enemies of the laboring people, the Communists, send our fraternal

681
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 2: greetings to you, the working women of the world. We

682
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,320
Speaker 2: send our greetings from Red Cronstadt, from the Kingdom of liberty.

683
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,400
Speaker 2: Let our enemies try to destroy us. We are strong,

684
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 2: we are undefeatable. We wish you fortune to all the

685
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 2: sooner win freedom from all oppression and coercion. Long live

686
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 2: the free revolutionary working women, Long live the worldwide social revolution.

687
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, total white army people right there, total counter revolutionary, yes,

688
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:03,959
Speaker 2: and they're speaking to us. One hundred three, one hundred

689
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 2: and three years in the future. Like when they say

690
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 2: we are undefeatable, I mean obviously they as individuals, we're not.

691
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 2: But we're still here and we're still fighting. I know

692
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 2: that's like a little self aggrandizing my current position versus theirs,

693
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 2: but like I think it's important to hold on to them.

694
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 2: We are strong, we are undefeatable. The Bolsheviks are getting worried.

695
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 2: Once the ice melts, the rebels can get help and

696
00:40:32,480 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 2: move freely, and they have a fuck ton of battleships,

697
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 2: so it could go really badly for the Bolsheviks if

698
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 2: they don't act quickly. For days, they bomb the place,

699
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 2: but because of the artillery the sailors have only fourteen

700
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: people are killed. March eleventh, the Bolsheviks attack again. They

701
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,320
Speaker 2: fail again. A group of deserters I think seven hundred

702
00:40:52,440 --> 00:40:55,960
Speaker 2: strong come to reinforce the rebels over the ice. They're like,

703
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 2: we're done with this fucking Red army. We're going to

704
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 2: cross this ice and be like we're with you. March fourteenth,

705
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 2: the same kind of thing happens. They try and attack,

706
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 2: they fail, but the rebellion isn't spreading to quote crime

707
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 2: thanks article on this it was not the superior military

708
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 2: force that had won the day for the Bolsheviks, but

709
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 2: rather superior command of the flows of information. The final

710
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 2: issue of the paper came out in March sixteenth, nineteen

711
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 2: twenty one, and it printed the following, which I've seen

712
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 2: described as a song, and I've also seen described as

713
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 2: a satire, and I think it's just something happening. In

714
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 2: the translation of how to describe this, it's a poem.

715
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 2: I'm going to read like a fucking poem. The All

716
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 2: Russian Commune raised us to the ground. The Communist dictatorship

717
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,080
Speaker 2: brought us to ruin. We drove the landowners out. We

718
00:41:45,120 --> 00:41:48,319
Speaker 2: waited for freedom, land, We shook off all the Romanovs,

719
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 2: and we were blessed with Communists. Instead of freedom and land,

720
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:56,359
Speaker 2: they gave us the Cheka. They're bringing surfdom for us anew. Hey,

721
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 2: wake up, peasants. Only the Bolsheviks alone eat and drink

722
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 2: like the barons before a rise, peasant folk. A new

723
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 2: dawn is rising, will throw off Trotsky's fetters, will throw

724
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 2: off Lenin, the Czar, will overthrow the dictatorship. We'll give

725
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 2: freedom to labor, well, a lot for labor. The land,

726
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 2: factories and plants, labor will establish a quality and with

727
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 2: labor free forever, fraternity of all people will come and

728
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 2: otherwise never. It's not the best translation, or maybe it's

729
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:29,359
Speaker 2: not the most poetic thing in the world, but it's

730
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 2: just honest.

731
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it's really beautiful in a lot

732
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: of ways. I think, I don't know. I mean, it

733
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:42,840
Speaker 1: says something that the ideas survived, like you know, and

734
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, the things they were fighting force outlive

735
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: their executioners, which is something like it's not the most

736
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:59,040
Speaker 1: sort of comforting thing in the world, but you know,

737
00:42:59,120 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: these people are gone now, like all the people who

738
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: killed them fucking die for it later, well not for this.

739
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 1: All these people are fucking murdered later anyways, and the

740
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: state that they built is gone. So you know, the

741
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 1: things that they're fighting for have outlived the people who

742
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: tried to kill them.

743
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 2: I think it's like we we're so used to a

744
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 2: certain type of happily ever after story where you have

745
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 2: this thing and you want it, and you fight and

746
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 2: you win and then you get the thing. You know,

747
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 2: And one of the things that I've learned by writing

748
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 2: history podcast scripts and reading history books all the time

749
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 2: and stuff. Is that that's not a particularly useful way

750
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 2: at looking at these things. It is worth fighting for things,

751
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,319
Speaker 2: it's worth trying to have things and then fighting for them.

752
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 2: But it is the fighting itself that is the winning.

753
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 2: And it is also our participation in this. When I

754
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:57,800
Speaker 2: say movement, I don't mean like social movement, although I

755
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 2: guess I also do this like movement that happens forever

756
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:05,720
Speaker 2: of people fighting to try and be equal and free,

757
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 2: you know, and we are blessed that we get to

758
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 2: be part of that because it's like there's no happily

759
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,200
Speaker 2: ever after, because we are humans and we will die

760
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 2: like no matter how we manage it. Like that is

761
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: something that is going to happen. And one of my

762
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 2: favorite like things about this. On the last day, two

763
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,719
Speaker 2: hundred and forty prisoners of war held by the Cronschat

764
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 2: rebels swore allegiance to the rebels, saying that they ask

765
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 2: the rebels to quote add our strength to its army units,

766
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 2: since we want to stand up as defenders of the

767
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 2: workers and peasants, not just of Cronstadt, but of all

768
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 2: Russia also, and these people there's no death penalty waiting

769
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 2: for them, right they could have just stayed in Cronstadt

770
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 2: jail for literally another day and then they would have

771
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 2: been free, right, So this was their actual decision to

772
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 2: be Like you ever see that movie, the Warsaw Ghetto

773
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,399
Speaker 2: movie called Uprising or Warsaw or something like that. It's

774
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 2: got like the guy from Friends in it.

775
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:15,000
Speaker 1: No, I don't know.

776
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:17,760
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful movie. It's about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

777
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,880
Speaker 2: It's a fictionalized account. There's a Nazi soldier in it

778
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 2: who realizes he's on the wrong side and fights for

779
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,240
Speaker 2: the Warsaw Ghetto folks. Right, It's kind of a Hollywood trope,

780
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 2: but it's like a beautiful and emotionally impacted part of it.

781
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,480
Speaker 2: Two hundred and forty people who had tried to storm

782
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 2: Kronstat I mean, with machine guns at their back, right,

783
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:45,320
Speaker 2: we're like, all right, we're with you in a victory

784
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 2: or death where we kind of know it. We yeah,

785
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,960
Speaker 2: we know what's gonna happen here. Yeah, Well we're gonna die,

786
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:54,800
Speaker 2: except more than half of them we're gonna survive. Yeah.

787
00:45:56,040 --> 00:46:00,720
Speaker 2: On March seventeenth, the final assault took Kronstadt. D thousand

788
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 2: troops were marshaled and upwards of ten thousand of them

789
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 2: died in the fighting that lasted all day and into

790
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 2: the night. Jesus Christ. More than half the rebels, about

791
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 2: eight thousand of them, including eleven of the fifteen members

792
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 2: of the Revolutionary Committee, escaped across the ice to Finland.

793
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 2: Oh my god. More than two thousand of the surrendering

794
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 2: rebels were executed by the Bolsheviks. And the first time

795
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:29,360
Speaker 2: I had like kind of heard the Cliffsnowes version of this,

796
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 2: I thought it was all the leaders who had gotten

797
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 2: away over the ice to Finland, and I was a

798
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 2: little bit like that sucks. Yeah. It was like no, no, Ashley.

799
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,439
Speaker 2: It was instead it was like, you know, I don't

800
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 2: know the blow by blow, right, they didn't get to

801
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 2: write a paper about this one, you know. Yeah, but

802
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 2: they like this is all of the Hollywood beautiful moments, right,

803
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:53,359
Speaker 2: this is the like you all go, we will hold

804
00:46:53,400 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 2: them off, and then killed ten thousand soldiers Like yeah,

805
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. Author Murray Bukchin put it the Kronstadt Uprising

806
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:12,720
Speaker 2: marked the definitive end of the Russian Revolution itself. He wrote,

807
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 2: what might have happened had Cronschat succeeded, we certainly would

808
00:47:17,880 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 2: have been spared a stalinist development, a development which turned

809
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,239
Speaker 2: the entire world communist movement into an instrument of international

810
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 2: counter revolution. In the end, it was not only Russia

811
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,880
Speaker 2: that suffered brutally, but humanity as a whole. A victory

812
00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 2: by the Cronschat Sailors might have also opened a new

813
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 2: perspective for Russia, a hybrid social development, combining workers control

814
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:42,280
Speaker 2: of factories with an open market in agricultural goods based

815
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 2: on small scale peasant economy and voluntary agrarian communes. A

816
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 2: participant in the uprising, put it or I think the

817
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 2: RevCom put it this way. Our demands are modest. We

818
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 2: want fewer freedoms than we had in nineteen seventeen. For this,

819
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 2: we are going to die. God, that's so bleak. It's

820
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 2: just I know. Alexander Berkman wrote soon afterwards in his diary,

821
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 2: this man could fucking write. It wasn't him writing for posterity.

822
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 2: It's just his diary, right, Gray are the passing days?

823
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,080
Speaker 2: One by one The embers of hope have died out.

824
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 2: Terror and despotism have crushed the life born in October.

825
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 2: The slogans of the revolution are forsworn, Its ideals stifled

826
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 2: in the blood of the people. The breath of yesterday

827
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:36,240
Speaker 2: is dooming millions to death. The shadow of today hangs

828
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 2: like a black pall over the country. Dictatorship is trampling

829
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 2: the masses underfoot. The revolution is dead. Its spirit cries

830
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 2: in the wilderness. I have decided to leave Russia. And

831
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:54,840
Speaker 2: Leon Trotsky, in charge of the repression, was himself exiled

832
00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 2: from Russia less than eight years later, and on August twentieth,

833
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 2: nineteen forty, he was assassinated at Mexico on orders from Stalin.

834
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 2: Grigory Zinoviev, who is the Bolshevik who ran the suppression

835
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 2: of the Saint Petersburg uprisings, was executed by Stalin in

836
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,880
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six, as were pretty much all the leaders

837
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 2: of the suppression of Cronstadt. Victor Serge, the anarchist term

838
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 2: Bolshevik writer who did a lot of justifying of the

839
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,800
Speaker 2: repression of Cronstadt to history, he was kicked out of

840
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:26,439
Speaker 2: the Bolshevik Party. He spent years in prison before going

841
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 2: into exile. His sister, mother in law, and two of

842
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 2: his brother and brothers in laws all died in Soviet prison.

843
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:38,800
Speaker 2: Crime think put it like this, as the saying goes.

844
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 2: If you love a Bolshevik, the best thing you can

845
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 2: do for him is prevent his party from coming to power,

846
00:49:44,320 --> 00:49:46,440
Speaker 2: since he is certain to be next up against the

847
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 2: wall after you. After Cronstadt, partly in response to Kronschet,

848
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 2: but not solely, Lenin ended war communism, announcing the new

849
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 2: economic policy, which was mixed economy, in which there was

850
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 2: limited private business and there was no more forced grain requisition.

851
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 2: Soon they're making trade agreements with the western capitalist powers.

852
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 2: In the twentieth century, Kronstat was a watchword for losing

853
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 2: faith in the Communist Party. Your Cronstat moment, according to

854
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 2: ex Stalinist journalist Louis Fischer in nineteen forty nine, is

855
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 2: when you finally open your mind to criticism of this

856
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 2: thing that you've been unwaveringly loyal to. A few years later,

857
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 2: after the Hungarian revolt in nineteen fifty six, plenty more

858
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 2: people had their Cronstat moment. People today are still having

859
00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 2: these moments where they realized that the easy answer is

860
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,759
Speaker 2: promised by authoritarian movements are never the real answers. The

861
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 2: real answers are much harder. Instead of listening to this

862
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,439
Speaker 2: or that daddy figure, we actually have to figure things

863
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 2: out collectively. We have to be responsible to one another,

864
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:57,720
Speaker 2: not to ideology, and we have to learn from the past.

865
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 2: That's my sex part and the.

866
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's an interesting place to end because

867
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 1: like this moment and then sort of the moment of

868
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: the early nineteen fifties where the communists admit that like

869
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:25,279
Speaker 1: Stalin had killed all these people, have this really profound

870
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,880
Speaker 1: impact on everything else that's going to happen in that

871
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:34,359
Speaker 1: century because so many people who had goyay he gets

872
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,560
Speaker 1: to the fifties of people who've held on believing through

873
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:42,000
Speaker 1: like the Moscow Trials, through the Persia's like through through

874
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 1: the alliance with Hitler, like through everything, suddenly realized that

875
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:50,399
Speaker 1: like oh my god, like no, this wasn't actually propaganda,

876
00:51:50,719 --> 00:51:55,880
Speaker 1: Like this stuff actually happens and it just destroys. Like

877
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 1: this is part of the reason why Britain is such

878
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:00,760
Speaker 1: a like fiasco, because like whatever sort of like communist

879
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: woment they'd had, like it just basically implosed because of it.

880
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:05,279
Speaker 1: Like this is where the term tankey comes from, is

881
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: like from that, right, and the apocle sort of horror

882
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: of this leaves you in this position through the early

883
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:16,759
Speaker 1: twentieth century, where like your options if you're not in

884
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:22,400
Speaker 1: like Spain, are you live under capitalism, you get fascism

885
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 1: or you get this like horribly mutated, deformed communism that

886
00:52:29,680 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: like largely consists of the super police dragging your family

887
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:37,080
Speaker 1: away in the middle of the night, and that really

888
00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:41,880
Speaker 1: just it's so bleak and it's so much of the

889
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 1: I think like the history of what follows is about

890
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,919
Speaker 1: nobody being able to sort of like once the people

891
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:51,359
Speaker 1: who had actually tried to build a revolution of people

892
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: are free or dead, there's this real thing that I

893
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:57,800
Speaker 1: think we get now too, of like there's just nothing

894
00:52:57,800 --> 00:53:01,239
Speaker 1: else and you know, like if you're in Germany, like

895
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: are you going to go to the barricades to get

896
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:06,360
Speaker 1: crosstauted yourself? Like no, of course not right, So people

897
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:08,440
Speaker 1: just sit there and then the Nazi show up, right,

898
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 1: and it's like it's this whole sort of I don't know,

899
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 1: it's this terrible spiral that just sort of drags the

900
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 1: rest of history down with it.

901
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 2: I think this is the end of like the hopeful

902
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 2: period of the left. It holds on in different places

903
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:28,200
Speaker 2: in different ways, right, but you have this we can

904
00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 2: do it thing. Then the big, huge time. Everyone worked

905
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:37,560
Speaker 2: together to do it. One group pulled all the strings

906
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 2: carefully to take power and turn it into red fascism,

907
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 2: you know, and it takes the wind out of so

908
00:53:45,719 --> 00:53:49,360
Speaker 2: much because you're like, yeah, like the level of distrust

909
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:51,879
Speaker 2: that people have for each other now, you know, because

910
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:55,719
Speaker 2: we've all seen it go so badly. And one thing

911
00:53:55,719 --> 00:53:59,759
Speaker 2: that changed for me, knowing about the Russian Revolution and

912
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 2: the c versions, I was always like, ah, that's why

913
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 2: you can't trust tankies, and that's true, but once you

914
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:10,280
Speaker 2: really drill down into it, it doesn't mean therefore, only

915
00:54:10,320 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 2: hang out and work with other anarchists or only work

916
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 2: with whatever you dear listener, are you know, progressive social

917
00:54:16,719 --> 00:54:24,800
Speaker 2: Democrats or im Tratskis or whatever right like? Instead, actually

918
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 2: the most beautiful parts of all of this were the

919
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:35,960
Speaker 2: political pluralism, were the people learning how to you know,

920
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 2: the thing that like really blew my mind. On some level.

921
00:54:38,880 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 2: I knew I'd been told, oh, Crunchat was anarchist rebellion,

922
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 2: and then I was like, no, it wasn't. And therefore

923
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:46,839
Speaker 2: you sort of think anarchists were this minor player. They

924
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 2: were not. They were a very major player in it

925
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:51,840
Speaker 2: that they were the leader of it, ironically was a

926
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:56,560
Speaker 2: you know, an anarchist, and but they weren't fighting for anarchism,

927
00:54:56,560 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 2: although they were fighting for something that is compatible with anarchism,

928
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:04,719
Speaker 2: like Soviet decentralized control is compatible, but it's compatible with

929
00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,200
Speaker 2: a lot of things. You know, there are a lot

930
00:55:07,280 --> 00:55:10,960
Speaker 2: of different ways of doing things that are compatible with

931
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 2: each other. And we're so used to thinking that nothing

932
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 2: we can do it has to be our way and

933
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 2: everything else is bad. And that is the kind of

934
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:23,839
Speaker 2: thinking that leads to Bolshevism, is thinking that only your

935
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:26,799
Speaker 2: way works. It's the tolerance paradox. I don't remember if I

936
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:28,319
Speaker 2: brought this up before, so sorry, I've been like thinking

937
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 2: about this so obsessively for weeks now, you know, the

938
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:36,440
Speaker 2: tolerance paradox of like, well, we can tolerate everyone who

939
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:40,160
Speaker 2: wants to have political pluralism, like how the Bolsheviks were

940
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,759
Speaker 2: able to run their paper in anarchist Ukraine, you know.

941
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:45,880
Speaker 2: And I think that there's also some stuff here that

942
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 2: like would be a little bit surprising to people about

943
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:49,839
Speaker 2: how hard these people are, Like no, we just want

944
00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 2: freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and like freedom

945
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 2: of like thought and ideological thing, and that is the

946
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 2: anti authoritarian position. Rather than saying you have to be

947
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:01,319
Speaker 2: an anti authoritarian, you're saying the structure should be anti

948
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 2: authoritarian so that people can think freely within it. I

949
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:06,160
Speaker 2: don't know, I feel like I hadn't totally pulled out

950
00:56:06,160 --> 00:56:07,759
Speaker 2: my epiphanies out of all of this yet, but it's

951
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:09,240
Speaker 2: like all I've been able to think about for weeks.

952
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: The thing that I keep thinking about with all of

953
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:18,360
Speaker 1: the demands about like not having single party control, reminds

954
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:20,520
Speaker 1: me a lot of so. I think it was twenty

955
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:24,439
Speaker 1: fourteen there was this uprising in this Mexican town called

956
00:56:24,480 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: Charan where people just ran, you know, like basically a

957
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:33,400
Speaker 1: bunch of women went into the woods and were like

958
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:35,799
Speaker 1: beating up a bunch of legal loggers because they were

959
00:56:35,880 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 1: cartel guys, and they were pretty sure they're cartel like loggers.

960
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:41,560
Speaker 2: I think it was cartel, but I'm yeah, and at

961
00:56:41,640 --> 00:56:43,000
Speaker 2: least that's the news that I got.

962
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:45,879
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And they, you know, they come back into

963
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: the town and they're like, okay, we're doing this now,

964
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 1: and the town runs out.

965
00:56:49,960 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 2: They were not the cops.

966
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:52,480
Speaker 1: They run into the cartels and they run out every

967
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:56,440
Speaker 1: political party and this actually, you know, it had the

968
00:56:56,520 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 1: effect of healing like a very divided community because suddenly,

969
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:02,960
Speaker 1: you know, once the parties are gone, everyone has to

970
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:07,360
Speaker 1: actually confront each other as people instead of sort of

971
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,800
Speaker 1: like abstract assemblages of symbols.

972
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:11,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like things like that.

973
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:14,600
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm pretty sure for everything that I've heard,

974
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 1: it's still like to this day, the cops have not

975
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:18,200
Speaker 1: been able to come back in, the cartels haven't been

976
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 1: able to come back in, and the parties haven't come

977
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 1: back in. That rules, Yeah, I think it has two

978
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: things that are interesting. One is people have this real

979
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 1: tendency to project revolution purely into the past and be like, well,

980
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: something that happens one hundred years ago won't happen again,

981
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 1: Like you're stuck here with this now nothing ever happens.

982
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:42,440
Speaker 1: But then also that's a really extreme way to enforce pluralism. Yeah,

983
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:45,920
Speaker 1: I mean I think that obviously encrounchedat right. Anarchism was

984
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 1: a ideological position, but it was not a party position.

985
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:50,320
Speaker 1: And that's actually what you just said helped me like

986
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 1: really point out what the difference between those are, you know,

987
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 1: because like you expect someone to be loyal to their party,

988
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 1: and so you're a electing someone based on the larger

989
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: party rather than like when you're talking about a delegate

990
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: who has a mandate, it's not that you're like, oh,

991
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:10,280
Speaker 1: I want a Republican to watch me to say whatever

992
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 1: Republicans do, and that's the best I can choose from. Instead,

993
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:16,920
Speaker 1: you're saying like, hey, Mia, you're our delegate. This is

994
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:19,080
Speaker 1: what I'm hoping you're able to accomplish and what you speak,

995
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:22,280
Speaker 1: you know, And it's not even like Mia, go be there.

996
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:26,840
Speaker 2: And be a political party. You know. I don't know,

997
00:58:28,600 --> 00:58:32,760
Speaker 2: but I do know that anarchists care about battleships and

998
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:36,440
Speaker 2: oh god, is that our like? Is that like the tanks?

999
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 2: Is that our tanks? Yeahs, I'm okay with it.

1000
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 1: I'm so down. I the anarchist pirate Navy will sail again.

1001
00:58:47,800 --> 00:58:51,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. And according to some of the Soviet propaganda films

1002
00:58:51,160 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 2: that I've watched parts of the song on our lips,

1003
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 2: as we do, it will be. I'm a roast chicken,

1004
00:58:57,840 --> 00:59:00,440
Speaker 2: I'm a steam chicken. I'm walking down the street. The

1005
00:59:00,560 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 2: cop asked me for our passport. Now got a passport

1006
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:06,880
Speaker 2: because I'm a fucking chicken. And I'm alright with that,

1007
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 2: all right? Well, uh, you got anything to plug.

1008
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have the show It Could Happen Here. It

1009
00:59:16,440 --> 00:59:20,160
Speaker 1: comes out five days a week. I'm on it. Other

1010
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:21,160
Speaker 1: Green people are on it.

1011
00:59:21,640 --> 00:59:21,840
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1012
00:59:21,960 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 1: I have absolutely no idea what's going to be happening

1013
00:59:24,800 --> 00:59:28,400
Speaker 1: when this episode comes out, but something it'll probably be good.

1014
00:59:28,760 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 2: Who knows. I will say that as I've been writing this,

1015
00:59:33,560 --> 00:59:36,920
Speaker 2: the only non Russian Revolution podcast that I've been listening

1016
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 2: to as I work on this is been It Could

1017
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 2: Happen Here is talking about what is it called, like

1018
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 2: Agenda forty seven or something with that. So if you

1019
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:48,920
Speaker 2: want to be terrified about stuff that's happening now, is

1020
00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 2: that I've been terrified about stuff that happened one hundred

1021
00:59:51,040 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 2: and two years ago. You can go back in time

1022
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:58,160
Speaker 2: and listen to those podcast episodes. And also you can

1023
00:59:58,200 --> 01:00:03,120
Speaker 2: follow me on the internet. I'm on substack and Instagram

1024
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:06,800
Speaker 2: and Twitter and blue Sky and I even use some

1025
01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:10,520
Speaker 2: of those sometimes. And you can check out the newest

1026
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:16,640
Speaker 2: Cool Zone Media podcast sixteenth Minute by Jamie Loftus about

1027
01:00:16,840 --> 01:00:20,560
Speaker 2: Internet fame. And I've never heard of Jamie Loftis podcast

1028
01:00:20,560 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 2: that I didn't love, so I'm really excited to listen

1029
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,520
Speaker 2: to it, and I'm really excited because it's an ongoing one.

1030
01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:27,680
Speaker 2: Because I have this problem where Jamie Loftis puts out

1031
01:00:27,680 --> 01:00:29,840
Speaker 2: a new podcast and then I'm like, and then I

1032
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:34,160
Speaker 2: binge listen, and then I'm like, but now it's done.

1033
01:00:34,320 --> 01:00:36,760
Speaker 2: I have to wait a year before there's some subject

1034
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:38,720
Speaker 2: I didn't know I cared about, like Kathy comics, to

1035
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:43,080
Speaker 2: suddenly learn about. But it's not gonna be a problem

1036
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:48,960
Speaker 2: because it's ongoing anyway, see y'all. Actually, I think what's

1037
01:00:48,960 --> 01:00:51,800
Speaker 2: gonna happen next Monday is that I'm going to take

1038
01:00:52,000 --> 01:00:56,560
Speaker 2: a week off because someone's gonna cut into my mouth

1039
01:00:56,600 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 2: and implant some kind of necromatic ritual where the corpse

1040
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:03,240
Speaker 2: of another person's bones is going to go into my

1041
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:08,240
Speaker 2: jaw and I can't record while I'm recovering from someone

1042
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:13,440
Speaker 2: else's jaw becoming part of my jaw. So instead you'all

1043
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 2: going to get to hear about Mayday. Unless you already

1044
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 2: heard it, just listen to it again. Whatever overly earnest

1045
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:22,800
Speaker 2: anarchist history time, and then I'll go back to doing

1046
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:25,920
Speaker 2: things that aren't just overly earnest anarchist history whenever I

1047
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:28,600
Speaker 2: come back from that. Unless I just keep doing more

1048
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 2: of it Hie Everyone.

1049
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:38,000
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1050
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:41,160
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,

1051
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:44,560
Speaker 1: visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

1052
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:48,000
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

1053
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:52,160
Speaker 1: your podcasts.