The Petropavlovsk Resolution


Written: February 28, 1921
First Published: Pravda O Kronshtadte, Prague, 1921
Source: The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution, by Paul Avrich, Cornell Press, © 1973.
Translated:
Transcription/Markup: James Davis/Brian Baggins
Fair Use: Soviet History Archive (marxists.org) 2006. This document has been reproduced in accordance to § 107 of Title 17 in US Copyright Law. Particularly, we wish to convey to reader's that the above mentioned book has relevant material on the subject of Anarchism in the Soviet Union. Enclosed is a sample of such material.


Having heard the report of the representatives sent by the general meeting of ships' crews to Petrograd to investigate the situation there, we resolve:

1. In view of the fact that the present soviets do not express the will of the workers and peasants, immediately to hold new elections by secret ballot, with freedom to carry on agitation beforehand for all workers and peasants;

2. To give freedom of speech and press to workers and peasants, to anarchist and left socialist parties;

3. To secure freedom of assembly for trade unions and peasant organizations;

4. To call a non-party conference of the workers, Red Army soldiers and sailors of Petrograd, Constant, and Petrograd province, no later than 10 March 1921;

5. To liberate all political prisoners of socialist parties, as well as all workers, peasants, soldiers, and sailors imprisoned in connection with the labor and peasant movements;

6. To elect a commission to review the cases of those being held in prisons and concentration camps;

7. To abolish all political departments, since no party should be given special privileges in the propagation of its ideas or receive the financial support of the state for such purposes. Instead cultural and educational commissions should be established, locally elected and financed by the state;

8. To remove all road block detachments immediately; [Armed squads which confiscated food that was illegally purchased from the peasantry.]

9. To equalize the rations of all working people, 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 Communist guards kept on duty in factories and mills. Should such guards or detachments be found necessary, they [are] to be appointed in the army from the ranks and in the factories and mills at the discretion of the workers;

11. To give peasants full freedom of action in regard to the land, and also the right to keep cattle, on condition that the peasants manage with their own means, that is, without employing hired labor;

12. To request all branches of the army, as well as our comrades the military cadets, to endorse our resolution;

13. To demand that the press give all our resolutions wide publicity;

14. To appoint an itinerant bureau of control;

15. To permit free handicrafts production by one's own labor.

PETRICHENKO, Chairman of the Squadron Meeting. PEREPELKIN, Secretary.