THE
KRONSTADT
REVOLT
First Published in "La Revolution Proletarienne," 1935.
. First English Translation published in ' " War CommentaryJanuary, J94S.
Reprinted rcith an introduction, February, lD+t. Reprinted July, 1942
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THE crushing of the Kronetadt " rebellion 99 in the early part of 1921 Is, as Clllga remarks, of decisive importance. It marks the triumph of the counter revolution in Russia- The aspiration* of the revolutionary workers and peasants found expression in the demands of the Kronstadt sailor* which are quoted in the following pages; and thp annihilation of the men of Kronstadt marked 'the final stabilization of the power of the Bolshevik government, the final hardening of that regime of totalitarian absolutism which Lenin set up, and which has been carried on by Stalin.
By 1921 the civil war and the wars of intervention were over, and the Russian workers and peasant* were expecting to be released Crom the rigours to which they had submitted for the sake of internal unity in the face of the enemy without. Meanwhile, as a result of "War Communism," i.e. State control of industry and land, Russian economy was completely disorgunlBed. When therefore L-enin showed no inclination at all towards restoring worker** liberties and control over industry unrest became very widespread.
On the political field, this unrest and dissatisfaction showed itself in the programme of the Worker*' Opposition. In Petrograd, the workers' protest meetings were dispersed by the Government so that they were forced to resort to strike action in order to get their demand* heard. Like Kronstadt, lik* the Makhnoviat movement in the Ukraine, the action* of these worker* have been mi*repre*ented and subjected to the grossed of calumnie*' by Leninist* of all shades. The striker*1 demand* are, however, well expressed in the following proclamation which appeared' on the wall* ot building* in Petrograd on February 27th:—
A complete chants Is necessary In tits polk les of t** Government'. First of ail, ths workers and peasants need freedom. The* don't want to Uvs by U* dtrrm #f Om BoJthevOd: they want to control their own destinies.
Comrades, preserve revolutionary order! DctcrmtaeO? and ta an organised manner demand:
Liberation of all arrested socialists *nd non-partlsa* workinf-men;
Abolition of martial law; freedom of speech, press and assembly for all those who labour;
Free election of shop and factory committees (Zahvkoml), of labour unions and soviet representatives.
Call meetings, pass resolutions send your delegates to the authorities and work for the realization of your demands!
(Quoted by Alexander Berkman: 4' The Kronstadt Rebellion," 1922)
Arrests and suppression were Lenin's only answers to these demands. The Government Committee of Defence of Petrograd issued an order: "In case crowds congregate in the streets, the troops are ordered to fire; those that resist are to be shot on the spot"
The Kronstadt sailors were disturbed by the events in Petrograd. Sympathy with the strikers was first expressed by the crews of the warships Petro-pavlovsk and Sevastopol, which In 1917 had been in the forefront of the revolutionary struggle. The movement spread throughout the fleet and then to the Red Army in Kronstadt. The Kronstadt sailors and workers had sent delegates to Petrograd to report on the events there, and it was on hearing the very unfavourable report of this delegation that they presented the Petropavlovsk resolution to a mass meeting of 18,000 sailors, Red Army men and workers. The resolution was accepted unanimously except for three votes.1
Lenin's reply to the Kronstadt resolution was to send Trotsky who gave the famous order to the Red Army to "shoot them like partridges." It was only then that the men of Kronstadt prepared to resist by force of arms; only then that the peaceful resolution became a "rebellion against the Soviet Power." Throughout, however, they abstained from taking the offensive, as they could easily have done.
- But in addition to the brutal suppression by the RedArmy, and subsequently by the Cheka, during which 18,000 workers were killed, Lenin also instituted a campaign of calumny against the Kronstadt workers. The delegates to the Tenth Party Congress which was going on at the same time were assured that "the White generals played a big role," that "it was *the work of the Social Revolutionarlsts and the
THE KRONSTADT REVOLT
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White Guardista from abroad/' The Kronstadt workers had asked that delegates of the workers and soldiers be sent to inquire into these charges. The Petrograd Soviet, under the chairmanship of the BoI~ shevik leader ZinoviefT, refused.
Doing their utmost to deceive the mass of the workers and peasants as to the events at Kronstadt, the Bolshevik leaders knew very well what was going on. In the "Krasny Archiv" (Red Archive), a monthly magazine published by the Editorial Board of the Supreme Military Council, and intended for circulation only among the upper reaches of the Communist Party—it was marked "Not for Publication ,r—there appeared in Dccemter, 1921, an article on u The Rebellion of the Kronstadt Sailors," which makes this quite clear. While carrying on the most virulent campaign of vilification, the Bolsheviks were quite cynically aware of the true state of affairs, and were only the more determined to maintain their stranglehold over the Russian workers at any cost, and regardless of the bloodshed involved*
"The Political Department of the Baltic nee* totm<l KmU isolatod not only from the mat&ea bat aUo from local party workers, having become a bureaucratic organ lacking any prestige and standing * • • The Baltic Fleet destroyed aU local Initiative and brought the work down to the level of clerical routine . . ♦ From July to November, 1920, SO per cent, of the members left the Party • . . Tbe Chief of the Organisation Department of the Baltic Fleet pointed oat In the middle of February, 1921, that 4 If the work goca am as It has been going on until now, a mutiny is likely to break out two or three month* from now . « / The Kaek of Party work told heavily upon the organization. At a mass meeting, numbering 16,000 people, which, of course, was also attended by Communists, no one, save Comrades Kalinin, Kazmhi and Vassttiev, voted against tbe reeolutlea. And this also had Its effect In the grievous Incidents taking place in the Kronstadt organization; the resignation of 381 members who did not grasp the true meaning of the rebellion and Its consequences. Nor did the responsible workers tead- • ing the work in Kronstadt understand what was going eo, and that Is why they fated to take the right measures nees»> sary at the very beginning/' ("The Red Archive," No. December, 1921, p. 44).
(Quoted % by O. P. Maximov, H The Ouillotlne at Work/' p. 109),
This passage makes it clear that the resolution vu a protest against conditions in the fleet for which even the writer lays the blame partly at the door of the Party. There is no mention here of " White Guardist generals," "Social Revolutionists'1 and 00 on. It is the clearest denial of the calumnies and lies circulated by the Bolsheviks themselves. Tb* subsequent history of Lenin's regime shows that the Kronstadt workers saw clcarly the future—or rather, the death—of the revolution. Their 44 rebellion " was a spirited and heroic fight against the totalitarian dictatorship of the Party. In the perspective of the Moscow trials and the Stalinist Terror, Kronstadt is clearly seen, as Ciliga points out, as a turning point In, the history of the Russian revolution* A turning point, moreover, which was to be almost exactly paralleled, and with the same dire results, in the crushing of the Spanish workers during the May Days in Barcelona in 1937. On both these occasions power passed definitely from the hands of the workers into those of the government/ and the revolution was ended.
The revolutionary workers must not only destroy the bourgeois state: they must also guard against the growth of a new apparatus which may wrest power from them. Any political party seeking to centralize control in its own hands, has to set up instruments to ensure that its plans are carried out; to control not only the defeated bourgeoisie, but also the revolutionary workers themselves. Inevitably, conflicts will' arise between it and the economic and social organizations set up by the workers* They can only end in the suppression of one power by the other.
Such a conflict may however be masked by certain ctfms which both the workers and the 44 revolutionary gfoviernment" may have in common. Both aim to overthrow the Bourgeoisie at home and abroad. In withstanding the counter-revolutionary attacks of the Bourgeoisie, the conflict between the workers and the new state is concealed in their common fltruggle; under cover of which the new state power seeks continuously to entrench itself at the expense of the workers' organizations, until it finally overthrows them altogether.
This consolidation of the power of the governing minority inevitably involves ruthless suppression, and the workers, their liberty lost and deprived of responsibility in the ordering of their lives and economy, sink back into their pre-revolutionary apathy. The revolutionary opportunity has once more been missed. Meanwhile the new state is forced to go further and further dowft the road to a bleak totalitarianism. To prevent the initial setting up of such a new governing power is the lesson which must be learnt from the Kronstadt tragedy. EDITORS
a 1
Wendelin Thomas (one of the leaders of the
revolt in the German navy In 1918, and a member of the American Committee of Enquiry into the" Moscow Trials) regarding the historical significance of the events in Kronstadt in 1921, has given rise to widespread international discussion.2 That in itself indicates the importance of the problem. On the other hand, it is no accident that special interest should be shown in the Kronstadt revolt to-day; that there is an analogy, a direct link even between • what happened at Kronstadt 17 years ago, and the recent trials at Moscow, is only too apparent. To-day we witness the murder of the leaders of the Russian revolution; in 1921 it was the masses who formed the basis of the revolution who were massacred. Would it be possible today to disgrace and suppress the leaders of October without the slightest protest from the people, if these leaders had not already by armed forge silenced the Kronstadt sailors and the workers all over Russia?
Trotsky's reply to Wendelin Thomas shows that unfortunately Trotsky—who is, together with Stalin, the only one of the leaders of the October revolution concerned in the suppression of Kronstadt who remains alive—still refus'es to look at the past objectivsly. Futhermore, in his article, "Too much noise about Kronstadt," he increases the gulf which he created at that time between the working masses and himself; he does not hesitate, after having ordered their bombardment in 1921 to describe these men today as "'completely demoralised elements, men who wore elegant wide trousers and did their hair like pimps."
No! It is not with accusations of this kind, which reek of bureaucratic arrogance, that a useful contribution can be made to the lessons of the great Russian revolution.
HE correspondence between Trotsky and
In order to assess the Influence tha£ Kronstadt ha* had on the outcome of the revolution. It is necessary
to avoid all personal issues, and direct attention to three fundamental questions: (1) In what general circumstances the Kronstadt revolt arose? (2) What were the aims of the movement? (3) By what means did the Insurgents attempt to achieve these alms?
The masses and the bureaucracy in 1920-1
EVERYONE "now agrees that during the winter of 1920 to 1921 the Russian Revolution was passing through an extremely critical phase. The offensive against Poland had ended In defeat at Warsaw, the social revolution had not broken out in the West, the Russian Revolution had become isolated, famine and disorganization had seized the entire country. The peril of bourgeois restoration knocked at the door of the revolution. At this moment of ' crisis the different classes and parties which existed within the revolutionary camjf each presented their solution for its resplution.
The Soviet Government and the higher circles In the Communist Party applied their own solution of increasing the power of the bureaucracy. The attribution of powers to the "Executive Committees" which had hitherto been vested in the soviets, the replacement of the dictatorship of the class by the dictatorship of the party, the shift of authority even within the party from its members to its cadres, the replacement of the double power of the bureaucracy and the workers in the factory by the sole power of the former,—to do all this was to "save the Revolution!" It was at this moment that Bukharln put forward his plea for a "proletarian Bonapartism." "By placing restrictions on itself the proletariat would, according to him, facilitate the struggle against the bourgeois counter-revolution. Here was manifested already the enormous quasi-messianic self-importance of the Communist Bureaucracy.
The Ninth and Tenth Congresses of the Communist Party, as well as the intervening year passed beneath the auspices of this new policy. L6nin rigidly carried It. through, Trotsky sang its praises. The Bureau-% cracy prevented the bourgeois restoration ... by eliminating the proletarian character of the revolution.
The formation of the Workers' Opposition within •the party, which, was supported not only by the
proletarian faction in the party itself but also by the great mass of unorganised workers, the general strike of the Petrpgrad workers a short time before the Kronstadt revolt and finally the insurrection itself, all expressed the aspirations of the masses who felt, more or less clearly, that a "third party" was about to destroy their conquests. The movement of poor peasants led by Makhno in the Ukraine was the outcome of similar resistance in similar circumstances. If the struggles of 1920-1921 are examined in the light of the historical material now available, one is struck by tfte way that these scattered masses, starved and enfeebled by economic disorganisation, nevertheless had the strength to rormulate for themselves with such precision their ■social and political position, and at the same time to defend themselves against the bureaucracy and against the bourgeoisie.
the resolution which served as a programme for the Kronstadt movement We reproduce it in full, because of its immense historical importance. It was adopted on February 28th by the sailors of the battleship "Petropavlovsk," and was subsequently accepted by all the sailors, soldiers and workers of Kronstadt.
"After having heard the representatives delegated by the general meeting of ships' crew to report on the situation in Petrograd this assembly takes the ioliowing decisions:
1. Seeing that the present soviets do not express the wishes of the workers and peasants, to organise immediately re-elections to the soviets with secret vote, and with care to organ!z« free electoral propaganda for all workers and peasants.
2. To grant liberty of speech and of press to the workers and peasants, to the anarchists and the left socialist parties.
S. To secure freedom of assembly for labour unions and peasant organizations. 1 To call a non-partisan Conference of the workers. Red Army soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt, and of Petrograd province, no later than March 10th, 1921.
5. To liberate all political prisoners of Socialist parties as well as all workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors imprisoned In connection with the labour and peasant movements.
E shall not content ourselves, like Trotsky, with
simple declarations, so we submit to readers
6. To elect a Commission to review the cases of those held in prisons and concentration camps.
7. To abolish all "politodell"3 because no party should be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive financial support from the government for such purposes. Instead there should be established educational and cultural commissions, locally elected and financed by the government.
8. To abolish Immediately all " zagryaditelnlye otryadi.f
ft. To equalize the rations of all who work with the exception of those employed In trades detrimental to health.
10. To abolish the communist fighting detachments in all branches of the army, as well as tiie communist guards kept on duty In mills and factories. Should such guards or military detachments be found necessary they are to be appointed in the army from the ranks, and in the factories according to the judgment of the workers.
11. To give the peasants full freedom of action in regard to their land and also the right to keep cattle on condition that the peasants manage with their own means; that is, without employing hired labour.
12. To request all branches of the Army, as well as our comrades the military kursantift to concur in our resolutions.
13. To demand that the press give the fullest publicity to our resolutions.
14. To appoint a travelling commission of control.
15. To permit free artisan production which does not employ hired labour.
These are primitive formulations, insufltelent no
doubt, but all of them impregnated with the spirit of October; and no calumny in the world can cast a doubt on the intimate connection existing between this resolution and the sentiments which guided the expropriations of 1917.
The depth of principle which animates this resolution is shown by the fact that it is still to a great extent applicable. One can, in fact, oppose it as well to the Stalin regime of 1938 as to that of Lenin in 1921. More even than that: the accusations of Trotsky himself against Stalin's regime are only reproductions, timid ones, it is true, of the Kronstadt claims. Besides, what other programme which is at all sooialist could be set up against the bureaucratic oligarchy except that of Kronstadt and the Workers* Opposition?
The appearance of this resolution demonstrates the close connections which existed between the movements of Pctrograd and Kronstadt Trotsky's, attempt to set the workers of Petrograd against those of Kronstadt in order to confirm the legend of the counter-revolutionary nature of the Kronstadt movement, comes back on Trotsky himself: in 1921, Trotsky pleaded the necessity under which Lenin was. situated in justification of the suppression of democracy in the Soviets and in the party, and accused the masses inside and outside the party of sympathizing toiffc Kronstadt. He admitted therefore that at that time the Petrograd workers and the opposition although they had not resisted by force of arms, none the less- extended their sympathy to Kronstadt
Trotsky's subsequent assertion that "the insurrection was inspired by the desire to obtain a privileged ration" is still more wild. Thus, it is one of these privileged people of the Kremlin, the rations for whom were very much better than those of others, who dares to hurl a similar reproach, and that at the very rfien who in paragraph 9 of their resolution, explicitly demanded, equalization of rations! This detail shows the desperate extent of Trotsky's bureaucratic blindness.
Trotsky's articles do not depart in the slightest degree from the legend created long ago by the Central Committee of the Party. Trotsky certainly deserves credit from the International working claaa for having refused since 1928 to continue to . participate in the bureaucratic -degeneration and in the new "purges" which were destined to deprive the Revolution of all its left-wing elements. He deserves still more to be defended against Stalin'9 calumny and assassins. But all this does not give Trotsky the right to insult the working masses of 1921. On the contrary! More than anyone else, Trotsky should furnish a new appreciation of the initiative taken at Kronstadt. An initiative of great historic value, an initiative taken by rank-and-file militants in the struggle against the first bloodstained "purge" undertaken by the bureaucracy.
The attitude of the Russian workers during the tragic winter of 1920-1921 shows a profound social instinct; and a noble heroism -inspired the working ■classes of Russia not only at the height of the Revolution but also at the crisis which placed it In mortal danger.
Neither the Kronstadt fighters, nor the Petrograd workers, nor the ranks of the Communists could summon, It is true, in that winter the same revolutionary energy as in 1917 to 1919, but what there was of socialism and revolutionary feeling in the Russia of 1921 was possessed by the rank-and-file. In their opposition to this, Lenin and Trotsky, in line with Stalin, with Zinoviev, Kaganovitch, and others responded to the wishes and served the interests of the bureaucratic cadres. The workors struggled for the socialism which the bureaucracy were already In process of liquidating. That is the fundamental point of tjie whole problem.
PEOPLE often believe that Kronstadt forced the introduction .of the NJE.P.*—a profound error* The Kronstadt resolution pronounced In favour of the defence of the workers, not only against the bureaucratic capitalist of the State, but also against the restoration of private capitalism. This restoration was demanded—in opposition t« Kronstadt—by the social democrats, who combined It with a regime of political democracy. And it was Lenin and Trotsky who to great extent realised it (but without political democracy) in the Jtorm of the N.E.P. The Kronstadt resolution declared for the opposite since it declared Itself against the employ-* New Economic Policy;
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THE KRONSTADT REVOLT
ment of wage labour In agriculture and small Industry. This resolution, and the movement underlying: it, sought for a revolutionary alliance of the proletarian and peasant workers with the poorest section* of the country labourers, in order that th'e revolution might develop towards socialism. The N.E.P., on the other hand, was a union of bureaucrats with the upper layers of the village against the proletariat; it was the alliance of State capitalism and private-capitalism against socialism. The N.E.P., is as much opposed to the Kronstadt demands as, for example, the revolutionary socialist programme of the vanguard of the European workers for the abolition of the Versailles system, is opposed to the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles achieved by Hitler.
Let us consider, finally, one last accusation which is commonly circulated: that action such as that at; Kronstadt could have indirectly let loose the forces of the counter-revolution. It is possible indeed that even by placing itself on a footing of workers' democracy the revolution might have been overthrown; but what is certain is that it has perished, and that it has perished on account of the policy of its leaders. The repression of Kronstadt, the suppression of the-democracy of workers and soviets by the Russian. Communist party, the elimination of the proletariat from the management of industry, and the introduction of the N.E.P., already signified the death of the devolution.
It was precisely the end of the civil war which produced the splitting of the post-revolutionary^ society into two fundamental groupings: the working-masses and the bureaucracy. As far as its socialist and internationalist aspirations were concerned, the Russian Revolution was stifled: in its nationalist, bureaucratic, and state capitalist tendencies, it developed and consolidated itself.
It was from this point onwards, and on this basis, each year more and more clearly, that the Bolshevik repudiation of morality, so frequently evoked, took on a development which had to lead to ths Moscow Trials. The implacable logic of things has manifested Itself. While the revolutionaries, remaining* ■uch only in words, accomplished to fact the task of the reaction and counter-revolution, they wer» compelled, inevitably to have recourse to lies, to calumny and falsification. This system of generalized lying Is the result not the cause, of the s«pais ration of the Bolshevik party from socialism and from the proletariat.
In order to corroborate this statement, I shall quote the testimony regarding Kronstadt of men I liave met in Soviet Russia.
"The men of Kronstadtf They were perfectly right; they intervened in order to defend the Petrograd workers: it was a tragic misunderstanding on the part of Lenin and Trotsky, that instead of agreeing with them, they gave them battle," said Dch. to me 4n 1932. He was a non-party worker In Petrograd in 1921, whom I knew in the political isolator at Verkhne-Uralsk as a Trotskyism
"It is a myth that, from the social point of view, Kronstadt of 19Z1 had a wholly different population from that of, 1911," another man from Petrograd, Dv., said to me in prison. In 1921 he was a member of the Communist youth, and was imprisoned in 1932 as a " decist" (a member of Sapronov's group of " Democratic Centralists " )
I also had the opportunity of knowing one of the most effective participants in the Kronstadt rebellion. He was an old marine engineer, a communist since 1917, who had, during the odvil war, taken an active part, directing at one time a Tcheka in a province somewhere on the Volga, and found himself in 1921 at Kronstadt as a political commissar on the warship "Marat" (ex " Petropavlovsk *'). When I saw him, In 1930, in the Leningrad prison, he had Just passed eight years in the Solovietskl islands..
THE Kronstadt workers pursued- revolutionary aims in struggling against the reactionary tendencies of the bureaucracy, and they used clean and honest methods. In contrast, the bureaucracy slandered their movement odiously, pretending that it was led by General Kozlovski. Actuallly, the men of Kronstadt honestly desired, as comrades, to discuss the questions at Issue with the representatives of the government. Their action, had at first, a defensive character—that is the reason why they did not occupy Oranlenbaum in time, situated on the coast opposite Kronstadt.
Right from the start, the Petrograd bureaucrats * made use of the system of hostages by arresting the families of the sailors, Red Army soldiers and workers of Kronstadt who were living a;t Petrograd, because several commissars at Kronstadt—not one of whom was shot—had been arrested. The news at the seizing of hostages was brought to the know* ledge of Kronstadt by means of leaflets dropped from aeroplanes. In their reply by radio, Kronstadt declared on March 7th " that they did not wish to imitate Petrograd as they considered that such an act, even when carried out in an access of desperation and hate, is ?nos( shameful and most cowardly from every point of xnew. History has not yet known a similar procedure " (Izvestia of the Kronstadt Revolutionary Committee 7th March 1921). The new governing clique understood much better than the Kronstadt " rebels " tho significance of the social struggle which was beginning, the depth of the class-antagonism which separated it from the workers. It is in this that lies the tragedy of revolutions in the period of their decline.
But while military conflict was forced upon Kronstadt, they still found the strength to formulate the programme for the " third revolution," which remains since then the programme of the Russian socialism of the futuret
THERE are reasons for thinking that granted the relation between the forces of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, of socialism and capitalism, which existed in Russia and Europe at the beginning of 1921, the struggle for the socialist development of the Russian Revolution was doomed to defeat. In those conditions the socialist pro-, gramme of the masses could not conquer: it had tp depend on the triumph of the counter-revolutloa whether openly declared or camouflaged under an aspect of degeneracy (as has been produced in fact).
But such a conception of the progress of the Russian Revolution does not diminish in the slightest, in the realms of principle, the historic importance of the programme and the efforts of the working masses. On-tho contrary, this programme constitutes the point of departure from which a n«w
t A comprehensive work on Kronstadt, containing the essential documents on these historic days, has been compiled by Ida Mett Her publication should supply, In my opinion, a timely contribution to the international discussion which is now developing. (Since published in America by the International Review—Ed.)
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cycle In the revolutionary socialist development will begin. In fact, each new revolution begins not on the basis from which the preceding one started, but from the point at which the revolution before it had undergone a mortal set-back.
The experience of the degeneration of the Russian Revolution places anew before the conscience of international socialism an extremely important sociological problem. In the Russian revolution, as in two other great earlier revolutions, those of England and of Prance, why Is it that it is from the inside that the counter-revolution has triumphed, at the moment when the revolutionary forces were exhausted, and by means of the revolutionary party itself ("purged," it is true of Its left-wing elements)?
Marxism believes that the socialist revolution, once begun, would either be assured of a gradual and continued development towards integral socialism, or would be defeated through the agency of bourgeois restoration.
Altogether,- the Russian Revolution poses in an •ntirely new way the problem of the mechanism of the socialist revolution. This question must become paramount in international discussion. In such discussion the problem of Kronstadt can and must have a position worthy of it.
-0O0-
• The Russian Myth, 3d. (Postage Id.)
Bolshevism — Promises and Reality, by P. G. Maximoff, 2d. (Postage Id). „
Trotsky Protests Too Much, by Emma Goldman, 2d. . (Postage Id.)
The Russian Bnigms, by Anton digs, 2/6 (Postage 6d.)
Tbe GuiDotme at Work: Twenty Years of Terror in Russia, by P. G. Maximoff (628pp.), 13/-(Postage 1/-).
Stalin, A-Critical Survey of Bolshevism, by Boris Souvaiiue (690pp.), 16A. (Postage 9d.)
All the above publications are obtainable through the
FREEDOM PRESS, 27, BELSIZE ROAD LONDON, N.W.6.
1 Those of Kturmin, the Commissar of the Baltic Fleet; Vassiliev, the chairman of the Kronstadt Soviet, and Kalinin, noto President of the U88R.
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2 Thie article woe written in 1938, at the time of a new outbreak of purge trials in Moscow.—Ed.
3 Political sections of the Communist party existing
In the majority of State institutions.-t Police detachments officially created to struggle against speculation, but which actually used to confiscate everything that the starving population, . the workers included, brought from the country
for their own personal consumption, f Cadet officers.