Why did the Petrograd workers not support Kronstadt?
For Trotskyists, the inaction of the Petrograd workers during the revolt is a significant factor in showing its “backward peasant” character. Trotsky, for example, argued that from “the class point of view” it is “extremely important to contrast the behaviour of Kronstadt to that of Petrograd in those critical days.” He argues that the “uprising did not attract the Petrograd workers. It repelled them. The stratification proceeded along class lines. The workers immediately felt that the Kronstadt mutineers stood on the opposite side of the barricades — and they supported the Soviet power. The political isolation of Kronstadt was the cause of its internal uncertainty and its military defeat.” [Lenin and Trotsky, Kronstadt, pp. 90-1] Firstly, it should be noted that Trotsky’s claims in 1937 are at odds with his opinion during the crisis. In a cable dated March 5th, 1921, to a member of the Council of Labour and Defence Trotsky insisted that “only the seizure of Kronstadt will put an end
