THE STORM OF KRONSTADT

 
    Following the bombardment which had been opened on the March 7th from the batteries of Sestroretsk and Lisy Nos, there came an attempt by the Bolsheviks to storm the forts of the fortress. The attack came from both South and North. The Commander of the Northern Group, Kazansky, in conversation with a Bolshevist correspondent declared that, "the first attack by troops took place already on March 8th. The group consisted exclusively of cadets. Fort No 7 was taken in battle, but our related losses were so significant, and the group itself so small, that the adversary succeeded in driving us from the fort."

    But in No 8 of 'Izvestiia of the Prov. Rev. Com.,' these first horrifying Bolshevik attempts to throw Communists dressed in white shrouds (of a color protective on snow) across the ice to storm Kronstadt were described in the following manner. "We did not want to spill fraternal blood, and we did not fire a single shot until they forced us to do so. We were forced to defend the rightful cause of the laboring people, and to fire. We were forced to fire at our own brothers, sent to certain death by Communists who feast on the people's bill. And at that time, their ringleaders, Trotsky, Zinoviev and the rest, were sitting on soft chairs in the warm, lit rooms of tsarist palaces, discussing how the quicker and better to cover rebel Kronstadt in blood."

    "To your misfortune a snowstorm arose, and an impenetrable night approached. None the less, taking nothing into consideration, the Communist butchers drove you across the ice. They drove you from behind, with detachments of machine gun armed Communists. Many of you perished that night, on the huge, icy expanse of the Gulf of Finland. At sunrise, when the snowstorm had quieted, only pathetic remnants reached us, hungry and exhausted, barely moving your feet, dressed in white shrouds. By early morning about a thousand of you had already been gathered, and by afternoon, a countless number. You paid dearly with your blood for this venture. And after your failure, Trotsky rolled off back to Petrograd, to once again drive new sufferers to the slaughter. Our worker-peasant blood is obtained for him cheaply enough...!"