Spanish versus Russian red terror

Not sure what your point is here. The point I made was that anarchist involvement in the red terror in the Spanish war was qualitatively different from Bolshevik involvement in the Russian red terror.

I never said that the CNT-FAI had no involvement in counterintelligence during the Spanish civil war, so the info you cite here isn't really relevant.

In Russia, mass killings by the Cheka were directed by the Bolshevik party, which included mass killings and executions of other communists, revolutionary workers, anarchists etc. Do you deny this?

Anthony Beevor's book, Battle to Spain, has a good overview of the Spanish red terror in chapter 8: https://libcom.org/history/battle-spain-spanish-civil-war-1936-1939-anthony-beevor

In Spain, about 38,000 people were killed in the red terror. The bulk of these were at the very start of the conflict, and were not directed centrally by the CNT-FAI – they were done by rank-and-file militia and civilians. The CNT-FAI also never murdered or executed rival revolutionaries.

As a couple of examples, the biggest mass killing in Madrid (i.e. where the socialist party, not the CNT was dominant) was a few days after the start of the civil war. Upon hearing of fascists executing 1200 Republicans, militia volunteers and civilians went to the prison and killed 2000 fascist prisoners – this was condemned by the Socialist Party, the leader of which threatened to resign.

In Barcelona, a UGT union chief was assassinated by anarchists, as he had previously helped blacklist CNT members. The murder was condemned by the CNT-FAI, who said they would execute any of their members who were responsible or who killed anyone for any personal motives. Several FAI leaders were executed by their own organisation for taking part in revenge killings of police spies for example.

In the latter part of the Spanish civil war, killings in the Republican zone were predominately organised by the Communist Party, not the anarchists.

Noa I don't know if you're aware but the two sources you cite in the OP are mutually contradictory in terms of the points being made about the terror in the Republican rearguard during the civil war. Preston's aim is to show that the Republican state did not carry out systematic violence, and accordingly blames nearly all outrages on 'notorious' 'deranged' 'criminal' anarchists. Ruiz is inclined to dispute this and wants to show that the Republican state and its cross-party support base should be held responsible for acts of terror in the Republican zone. The specific case of Amor Nuño that you mention is interesting because Ruiz has gone to some lengths to dismantle Preston's portrayal of him (here if you read Spanish..)

A couple of points on Steven's post:

As a couple of examples, the biggest mass killing in Madrid (i.e. where the socialist party, not the CNT was dominant) was a few days after the start of the civil war. Upon hearing of fascists executing 1200 Republicans, militia volunteers and civilians went to the prison and killed 2000 fascist prisoners – this was condemned by the Socialist Party, the leader of which threatened to resign.

In Barcelona, a UGT union chief was assassinated by anarchists, as he had previously helped blacklist CNT members. The murder was condemned by the CNT-FAI, who said they would execute any of their members who were responsible or who killed anyone for any personal motives. Several FAI leaders were executed by their own organisation for taking part in revenge killings of police spies for example.

A minor point but the Socialist Party wasn't 'dominant' in Madrid - the CNT also had a good deal of support and significant power on the street and the Communists grew rapidly from early in the war. There weren't several executions of FAI 'leaders' and I wouldn't have thought that the killing of spies would have resulted in execution.. do you have a source for that? There are a couple of recorded cases of CNT members being shot for looting during the registering of property.

The point that there is a clear difference between the terror directed against working class revolutionaries by the Bolsheviks and the terror conducted early in the war by revolutionaries in Spain is pretty indisputable I'd have thought.
Where it gets murky is in the CNT's collaboration in the Republican state, which waged a repressive campaign against anarchists as the war progressed. Of course the CNT was not a leading protagonist in this but its leadership did to a certain extent consent to it or at least allow it to happen..

What "outrages" do you claim were carried out by the CNT-FAI against peasants?

Also with your comments on massacring and executing striking workers, it looks like you are saying it's justified, if rather than striking for better wages, workers are striking for more rations?

Either way your argument doesn't really hold up. Because the CNT-FAI didn't massacre or execute striking workers, unlike the Bolsheviks. You can argue that the Bolsheviks were justified in massacring strikers, but that is a different argument.

Also the CNT-FAI never invaded any revolutionary areas and massacred their fellow revolutionaries who disagreed with them (à la Kronstadt).

You claim that the Spanish and Russian events were quite similar, but that's complete nonsense. You admit you can't find evidence of orders for executions by the CNT-FAI (although I did give you evidence of some of these: orders by the CNT and FAI for executions of their own members who were involved in extrajudicial killings)

However evidence of the Bolshevik leadership ordering "mass terror" and mass killings is well-known. For example in the letter Lenin wrote which we were discussing, he orders "mass terror", and for mass shootings and deportations. And of course Trotsky is well-known for ordering Kronstadt revolutionaries to be "shot like partridges". Good luck finding any quotes from Durruti saying anything like that…

You mean there's no edict from Durruti to massacre sex workers in Valencia? Honesty, Lenin wasn't so bad when it comes to terror isn't a particularly good hill to die on.

Noa Rodman

Steven

You claim that the Spanish and Russian events were quite similar, but that's complete nonsense.

I claim the death toll of red terror victims in Spain is higher than that of the first years of the Russian Civil War. I'm surprised that apparently you so easily accept that, and move to defensive arguments (which I engage with, for sake of argument, otherwise there'd be no debate with you and that's no fun).

And of course Trotsky is well-known for ordering Kronstadt revolutionaries to be "shot like partridges"

That's a myth about Trotsky fwiw.

The 'red terror' is a Francoist term used to justify subsequent repression. From the point of view of someone sympathetic to the Spanish revolution (or just trying to make sense of this violence) it makes no sense to lump all extrajudicial killings in the Republican zone together, since this would include everything from killings by mobs, targeted revenge killings by individuals, targeted killings by squads belonging to political groupings, summary execution of fascist snipers, execution by popular tribunals etc (ie what might be called revolutionary violence with all its justifications, excesses and outrages) to summary execution by bodies subordinate to the Republican state and the killing of anarchists by counterrevolutionaries in the Republican zone.

"What if it's true that the Kronstadt sailors inflicted 10,000 deaths on the Bolshevik side (which would be 4x times as high as their own casualties)? Do you justify/support the "massacre" of 10,000 people (even though they were not anarchists)?+
This is just sophistry. The Krionstadters didn't attack the Bolsheviks, they were acting in self-defence. Your statement is completely obscene and just makes you look like a clown.

the only red terror in the Spanish civil war in such a case is given by the Stalinists of the PCE-PSUC. And still it was minuscule. In the same way that the CNT-FAI had its selective deaths against agents of the reactionaries, as a rule they were imprisoned or moved to areas where they were released with control.

However, the Francoist side had explicit orders in the advance to jail and shoot any "red" (republican, anarcho-syndicalist, anarchist, socialist, communist ...) and to rape women for heretics.

There were bolsheviks among the Kronstadt sailors too. Israel Getzler said about 3,000 in 1917, not sure how many stayed in the party.

Kronstadt was the Bolshevik state and red army against bolshevik, SR and anarchist soldiers, it's a massive over-simplification to call it 'bolsheviks vs. anarchists'.

Also Noa Rodman fails to mention the 2,500 Kronstadters shot by the Bolsheviks after the crushing of the rising.

Noa Rodman

I was assuming 2,500 death on the Kronstadt side in total. So let's say they inflicted 10,000 casualties on the Bolshevik side, and these bullets didn't fire themselves, then my "obscene" question is whether it was it worth to kill so many people in self-defence? Wouldn't it be better either to surrender (as was offered) or flee to Finland?

Fucking lol. Incredible stuff.

Steven.

For example in the letter Lenin wrote which we were discussing, he orders "mass terror", and for mass shootings and deportations. And of course Trotsky is well-known for ordering Kronstadt revolutionaries to be "shot like partridges". Good luck finding any quotes from Durruti saying anything like that…

Give Noa a few minutes, im sure they can find something thats been "mistranslated"...

Noa Rodman

Steven

You claim that the Spanish and Russian events were quite similar, but that's complete nonsense.

I claim the death toll of red terror victims in Spain is higher than that of the first years of the Russian Civil War.

if that's your only point, then I don't know why you are disagreeing with me. We are having this conversation because I made the point that anarchist involvement in the Spanish red terror was qualitatively different from Bolshevik involvement in the Russian red terror. You then disagreed with me, and have been arguing against me since.

But none of your points actually address this argument of mine. You are scrambling around mentioning a bunch of irrelevant side issues completely unrelated to my central point.

In terms of numbers of deaths, that may be correct (although death toll figures for the Russian civil war aren't particularly great, whereas they are much more accurate for Spain). However that is totally unrelated to my point.

And of course Trotsky is well-known for ordering Kronstadt revolutionaries to be "shot like partridges"

That's a myth about Trotsky fwiw.

having searched for the original source, it appears to be a broadcast by the Petrograd Defence Committee to the Kronstadt rebels saying if they don't surrender they will be "shot like grouse" (https://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/events/kronstadt/izvestia/04.htm)

that's not really much better…

Yeah he just said in 1938, after nearly two decades to reflect on the mass murder of revolutionaries:

"completely demoralised elements, men who wore elegant wide trousers and did their hair like pimps'. "

as a peripheral note, here's an excerpt from a review of Preston's "The Spanish Holocaust" (which doesn't only pertain to Preston, by the way):

So while Preston is semi-supportive of 'power in the streets [being] assumed by the armed workers who had contributed to the defeat of the rising,' at the end of the same paragraph, he laments that 'in the chaos created by the disappearance of most of the conventional structures of law and order, there was also an element of sheer criminality,' which was 'born of the unleashing of the worst instincts [sic!] of those who took advantage of the removal of social restraints.' (221). Here we have the banal statist prejudices which posit that the first thing people (not just anarchists!) would do in the absence of police, courts, and jails would be to go on murderous rampages, rampages that are somehow kept to a minimum -- since they are certainly not prevented! -- by the supposedly deterrent presence of cops. Preston offers no discussion on the role of the patrols of armed workers keeping revolutionary order...
Yet when faced with the actual evidence, Preston can only lamely say in the penultimate paragraph that 'The correlation between CNT-FAI strength and the nature of the extrajudicial repression is far from clear.' (258). It would be easier to take this statement, supported by Preston's own previous research, more seriously if he hadn't spent the entire chapter (almost 50 pages) trying to prove that there was a precise correlation, almost certainly having to do with the automatic depravity of those who called themselves anarchists. When someone's conclusions are not borne out -- or clearly contradicted -- by the facts they themselves have produced, the most generous way of referring to their research is 'flawed.' The less generous way to refer to the researcher is 'liar.'

Where did you read this numbers?

Ragnar

Where did you read this numbers?

my figure is from Battle for Spain by Anthony Beevor

Dannny

A couple of points on Steven's post:

As a couple of examples, the biggest mass killing in Madrid (i.e. where the socialist party, not the CNT was dominant) was a few days after the start of the civil war. Upon hearing of fascists executing 1200 Republicans, militia volunteers and civilians went to the prison and killed 2000 fascist prisoners – this was condemned by the Socialist Party, the leader of which threatened to resign.

In Barcelona, a UGT union chief was assassinated by anarchists, as he had previously helped blacklist CNT members. The murder was condemned by the CNT-FAI, who said they would execute any of their members who were responsible or who killed anyone for any personal motives. Several FAI leaders were executed by their own organisation for taking part in revenge killings of police spies for example.

A minor point but the Socialist Party wasn't 'dominant' in Madrid - the CNT also had a good deal of support and significant power on the street and the Communists grew rapidly from early in the war. There weren't several executions of FAI 'leaders' and I wouldn't have thought that the killing of spies would have resulted in execution.. do you have a source for that?

only just seen this. I cited my source, above, it was chapter 8 of Battle for Spain:

Several
prominent anarchists, such as their
building union leader, Josep Gardenyes,
who had been freed from prison on 19
July, and Manuel Fernández, the head of
the catering syndicate, were executed by
their own comrades in the FAI for taking
vengeance on police spies from the time
of Primo’s dictatorship

that's on page 409 of the PDF

Noa, it might be helpful if you also included the political affiliations of each of those making such claims. This was also a problem with Preston's book; he never analyzed the origins of his new source material, and never called into question the partisan biases of the authors of those new sources. Much of the source material for "The Spanish Holocaust" comes from Francoist court records and the newly released memoirs of conservatives, right-wing socialists, and Catalanists. For him to repeat their allegations without commenting on their motivations for either exaggerating or diminishing numbers was irresponsible at best. For you, it's inexcusable. For example, Salas was a participant in the General's Rebellion against the Republic, was part of the Francoist Blue Division that fought on the Russian Front, and was the official historian of the CIvil Guard. As such, he and his numbers can hardly be said to be impartial. Similarly, Vidal is a Christian theologian and historian, whose interest in inflating the numbers of victims of the "Red Terror" have to do more with his skewed cosmology of Catholic martyrdom than it does with anything as secular as facts. Without considering the historian's personal perspective, all you're doing is repeating a bunch of statistics of questionable provenance and quality.

For those who like to play the competitive numbers game with human tragedy and counter-revolution, more numbers for whatever they're worth (dunno if these books are any good);

Given that the future USSR was in chaos in 1918 and that the work was done by the secret police, it is hard to find accurate figures of those who suffered during the Red Terror. If it was done to make people “tremble” then there is a chance that the figures were exaggerated simply to scare potential opponents into acquiescence. It is thought that between 10,000 to 15,000 people were summarily executed by the Cheka between September and October 1918 in areas under the formal control of the Bolsheviks – such figures were published in official journals and openly publicised. As there were no public trials, such figures cannot be verified. However, it is thought that the figures for summary executions in areas previously under the control of the Whites were far higher than 15,000. Lenin himself gave the order for the execution of 50,000 in the Crimea alone [can't find any source for this claim-RM] and some include these figures as part of the “Red Terror” as opposed to being the end result of the Russian Civil War.

The Red Terror resulted in the execution of thousands of men classified as “bandits”. However, the term never had a legal definition and it seems very likely that it became a one-word fits all to explain the arrest and then execution of suspects. Those who harboured the thousands of deserters from the Red Army were arrested and punished as they were branded “bandits”. This meant that many families suffered as the result of just one member of it defying the law. ...
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/russia-1900-to-1939/the-red-terror/

Leonid Krasin, the [Bolshevik] People's Commissar for Transport, wrote to his wife about his disagreement with the Red Terror: "After the assassination of Uritsky and the attempt on Lenin we went through a period of so-called `Terror', one of the most disgusting acts of the neo-Bolsheviks. About 600 to 700 persons were shot in Moscow and Petrograd, nine-tenths of them having been arrested quite at random or merely on suspicion of belonging to the right wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries, or else of being counter-revolutionists. In the provinces this developed into a series of revolting incidents, such as arrests and mass executions."

The Red Terror continued throughout the Russian Civil War. David Bullock, the author of The Russian Civil War (2008) has argued that about "200,000-400,000 died in prison or were executed as a result of the Red Terror" between 1918-1920. (23) However, the executions continued after that date. According to Maxim Gorky it was left-wing opponents of the Bolsheviks who were the main victims. http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSterror.htm

In the case of the Cheka – the enforcers of the Terror - making a distinction between judicial & extra-judicial killings is not that useful;

In an interview in the Bolshevik newspaper, Novaya Zhizn, Dzerzhinsky admitted: "We stand for organized terror - this should be frankly admitted. Terror is an absolute necessity during times of revolution. Our aim is to fight against the enemies of the Soviet Government and of the new order of life. We judge quickly. In most cases only a day passes between the apprehension of the criminal and his sentence. When confronted with evidence criminals in almost every case confess; and what argument can have greater weight than a criminal's own confession." http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSterror.htm

Many accounts of arrest, trials & interrogations, both from survivors and archives, show how most were already in practice condemned by the time they were arrested. Torture for quick confessions (some brave souls managed to resist and refused to name others) was commonplace and ‘trials’ generally a brief rubber-stamp bureaucratic formality with guilt already assumed or demanded by orders from higher Party officials. By the time of the 1930s Moscow show trials the Cheka had these tactics down to a fine art. So the main difference for the judicially accused was that your jailing or death was more likely to be bureaucratically recorded as part of your processing. Even then, many sent to the camps disappeared and were lost to an unknown fate, worked or beaten to death by a camp regime often not bothered with the effort of recording deaths. Were those deaths ‘judicial’ or ‘extra-judicial’?

Also worth noting that in Spain the Red Terror of the Stalinists against anarchist & marxist revolutionaries – led by Noa’s beloved Lenin-era Russian Bolshevik veterans of high Party status – was very much extra-judicial with secret prisons and murderous disappearances common. This occurred at the very time the Moscow show trials – based on invented conspiracies & tortured confessions - were running. So two versions of Bolshevik ‘justice’ – ‘judicial’ & ‘extra-judicial’ – were operating at the same time.

Erich Mielke, later the head of the Stasi in East Germany, was stationed in Spain in the SIM secret police, away from the front, purging anarchists and poumistas from the international brigades.

https://journals.iai.spk-berlin.de/index.php/iberoamericana/article/viewFile/1358/994

Also:

https://libcom.org/library/soldier-returns-letter-durruti-column-american-fighter

Spain is a wonderful country. At present it reminds me of the stories I have read of the O.G.P.U. [secret police] in Russia. The jails of loyalist Spain are full of volunteers who have more than a single-track mind. I know one of them from Toronto, a member of the L.R.W.P. I wonder if they will bump him off. The Stalinists do not hesitate to kill any of those who do not blindly accept Stalin as a second Christ. One of the refugees who came over with me from Spain was a member of the O.G.P.U. in Spain, which, by the way, is controlled by Russia. Every volunteer in the Communist International Brigade is considered a potential enemy of Stalin. He is checked and double-checked, every damn one. If he utters a word other than commy phrases he is taken "for a ride." This chap (ex- O.G.P.U.) is like all the other commies coming out of Spain, absolutely anti-Stalin and anti-communist. He skipped the country by flashing his O.G.P.U. badge on the trains etc.

Steven.

only just seen this. I cited my source, above, it was chapter 8 of Battle for Spain:

Several
prominent anarchists, such as their
building union leader, Josep Gardenyes,
who had been freed from prison on 19
July, and Manuel Fernández, the head of
the catering syndicate, were executed by
their own comrades in the FAI for taking
vengeance on police spies from the time
of Primo’s dictatorship

that's on page 409 of the PDF

Cheers Steven. These are the cases I was thinking of. I don't know if you are particularly bothered about this, but just in case: Beevor's source for this is Peirats. In the Peirats book he doesn't say explicitly why they were killed but the clear implication from the context is that it was for looting; this is corroborated by other sources such as García Oliver's autobiography and the Encyclopedia of Spanish anarchists. It seems like there's still some confusion as to the precise details of the case but I've not seen anything except for Beevor that suggests it was for killing police spies, and his source in any case does not back this up.

Another notable CNT execution of one of their own during the civil war is the case of Lucio Ruano, who was a member of the Durruti Column's War Committee and briefly took on a leadership role with the part of the column that remained in Aragón when Durruti went to Madrid. It's another confusing one, as Guillamón reports that a specific CNT union branch agreed that he should be executed on the basis of excesses at the front (summary executions and looting) at the beginning of 1937. He was only murdered in the summer, however, after having played an important role in the May days, and the immediate cause of his execution was probably a plan to flee Spain with booty he had looted.

Noa Rodman

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror_(Spain)#Death_toll

38 000 Antony Beevor[45]
50 000 Stanley Payne[50]
60 000 Paweł Skibiński[53]Martín Rubio[54]Pio Moa[55]
72,344 Ramón Salas Larrazaba[56]Warren H. Carroll[56]Marek Jan Chodakiewicz[57]Julio de la Cueva[46]
110 905 César Vidal

(I don't list tte 172,344 figure by Piotr Zychowicz[12] because that includes starvation)

There also seems a new book (2017) researching this by Laia Balcells: Rivalry and Revenge: The Politics of Violence during Civil War. No pdf of it online it seems, except some earlier research article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2010.00588.x

it's quite funny really, in bringing up all of this information which is unrelated to the point I was making, Noa is actually helping my point.

As a reminder, essentially my point was that the Bolsheviks themselves ordered mass killings in the Russian revolution, and these mass killings included revolutionary workers. And that in Spain, the CNT-FAI did not order mass killings, and did not murder those on their own side.

As others have mentioned, the death toll in Spain was high (although of course not nearly as high as the White Terror by the fascists), but the majority of these killings were nothing to do with the CNT-FAI, and indeed the mass murders of fellow revolutionaries by the Republic were organised by none other than the Russian communist leaders Noa seems to think he is defending

Noa

it's quite funny really, in bringing up all of this information which is unrelated to the point I was making, Noa is actually helping my point.

It reminds me of when Noa spent four pages of comment thread trying to prove there was nothing about Nizhni-Novgorod that could possibly result in Lenin ordering the massacre of hundreds of prostitutes (as opposed to labelling political opponents prostitutes), until he found several sources pointing out that it was a well known centre for the sex industry in Tsarist Russia due to a regional fair which had been based there for decades.

But I do appreciate the honesty in actually digging up the sources and posting them anyway.

Sure, it's just a few thousands or tens of thousands of human lives give or take one way or the other

Noa Rodman

It goes without saying that every individual unjustly killed is horrific. But if you care so much about the casualties of the Bolshevik executions, then a basic thing would be to establish some range for their total. It's not an edifying task for sure. Otherwise you're contributing just more of your hallmark snark.

Is that my hallmark?

I'm not really interested in numbers. In a civil war situation I don't really have a problem with executing fascists, and people who partook in mass murders of workers (for example some priests who were shot in Spain were people who told fascists who the union members were, so they could be executed en masse). What I do have a problem with is mass murders of revolutionary workers, and innocent people like sex workers. Neither of which the CNT-FAI did, and both of which Lenin and Trotsky either did or tried to do.

On Bolsheviks in Spain; Antonov-Ovseenko’s is an interesting story, he was one of those whose loyal counter-revolutionary role in Spain at the service of Stalin’s foreign policy couldn’t save them from the Terror when they returned;.

Antonov-Ovseenko was the Soviet consul general in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. He arranged for Russian advisers to help the Popular Front government while expanding the influence of the Soviet Union in the country.
When the show trials took place in August 1936, Antonov-Ovseenko was quick to praise Joseph Stalin. He wrote an article in Izvestia entitled "Finish Them Off" where he described Lev Kamenev and Gregory Zinoviev as "fascist saboteurs". He added "the only way to talk to them" was to shoot them.
Joseph Stalin was convinced that Antonov-Ovseenko was plotting against him and in August, 1937, he recalled him to the Soviet Union. Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko was arrested and shot without trial in 1939. A fellow cellmate remembered: "He said goodbye to us all, took off his jacket and shoes, gave them to us, and went out to be shot half-undressed." http://spartacus-educational.com/RUSantonov.htm

An interesting old thread about Antonov-Ovseenko’s unusually close relations with both the Makhnovists and CNT; https://libcom.org/forums/history/strange-bolshevik-treated-anarchists-well-antonov-ovseenko

Though others retained more dignity under the Terror, Antonov-Ovseenko’s readiness to denounce his Party comrades was probably desperation to try to save his skin and that of others close to him (his wife was executed in 1936). His son, who was sent to the Gulag for 13 years in 1940 for refusing to denounce his murdered dad as ‘an enemy of the people’, later became a historian of Stalin’s Terror. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/anton-antonov-ovseyenko-historian-and-survivor-of-stalins-gulag-dies-at-93/2013/07/13/aed01ec0-ebcc-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f7826c979457

Noa Rodman

So accept your responsibility; what if Kronstadt won and went into the offensive in Petrogard against the Bolshevik? Would the "third revolution" not necessarily involve fighting the Bolshevik party and thus killings?

If they won, it would have been a withdrawal of the Red Army, no food blockade etc. This does not imply that the Kronstadt soldiers would go into an expansionist military assault on Petrograd.

Seems more likely there would be some kind of temporary truce, that they'd have been able to continue to produce Isvestia and similar, and that this might then have emboldened anarchists, Left SRs and dissident Bolsheviks elsewhere (as opposed to seeing the uprising completely crushed and slandered). Or, that the Bolsheviks would have acceded some of the demands to retain stability rather than risk another defeat and without any kind of clear final reckoning.

It's hard to see what point Noa is trying to make but for the purposes of this argument he seems to want to make a neutral equivalent of numbers of killed - as if this will in some unexplained way absolve the counter-revolutionary Bolshevik slaughter. But obviously nobody, neither the Bolsheviks nor their opponents, acted on the premise that deaths on either side were neutral or equivalent. In all conflicts participants evaluate what is worth killing and dying for. For the Bolsheviks it was for state power and its extension and for dictatorial control. For their opponents it was against what they saw as the Bolshevik counter-revolution; these oppositions are really the only thing worth trying to draw conclusions on.

The same article Noa quotes also notes;

"Many of the troops the Bolsheviks sent in were Kursanti and Tcheka agents. The regular Red Army was deemed undependable. Only the most loyal troops were committed. Even so, Trotsky and Tukhachevsky took no chances and had the soldiers backed up with machine guns to prevent desertion." - p.18 - http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1033&context=uhp_theses

So some troops were presumably considered less than willing to storm Kronstadt and were forced into battle at gunpoint. If 40,000 of them died how much responsibility should Trotsky & Tukhachevsky share for their reluctant deaths?

If — and it’s a huge “if” — the Kronstadt rebels were responsible for the majority of the deaths of those who were storming across the ice, that was a military operation, not the execution on non-combatants. Apples and oranges, as the saying goes. There is no rehabilitation possible for the Bolsheviks and all the Party Communists who came after.

So you've found one article - out of the massive amount of conflicting material available on Kronstadt - that says what you want to believe and you quickly pronounce it as proof "beyond doubt". That illustrates well your regular mishandling of 'history' and a lack of credibility. IMO the most important document of the Kronstadt events is the rebels' publicly stated programme; https://libcom.org/history/petropavlovsk-resolution
- which shows a concern for the improvement of working class conditions against Bolshevik dictatorship and none at all for advancing White Guard interests. For a very different view; https://libcom.org/library/kronstadt-bolshevik-propaganda

That was a quote from the article itself.

Then use "quotation marks" or the 'quote' formatting button above the comment box. (Highlight quote with left click, then press quote button.)