Neoprene

Introduction to the online version of an older pamphlet, which the IBT just republished on their website www.bolshevik.org (after a sloppy Scan/OCR job to PDF) and which can also be downloaded here.

„The subject of this pamphlet is the Bolshevik suppression of the revolt of the Kronstadt naval garrison in March 1921. Over the years, the more sophisticated elements in the
anarchist and socialdemocratic milieus have sought to use this incident as „proof‘ that the
regime of Lenin and Trotsky in the early years of the revolution was not qualitatively different from the brutal Stalinist dictatorship which followed it. For this reason alone the events at Kronstadt deserve serious study.
The main item contained herein is an extended review essay on Paul Awich’s valuable book „Kronstadt 1921″. The essay, which is reprinted with the permission of the author, originally appeared adecade ago in Workers Vanguard, publication of the then-Trotskyist Spartacist League (SL). We have have also included the ancillary material which appeared in WV at the time. (Unfortunately, in the decade since this material was first published, the SL has been transformed into an organization which can no longer be considered revolutionary in any sense.) Finally, we reprint Max Shachtman’s 1934 article on the relation of the revolutionary vanguard to the rule of the proletariat.“