Page "Kronstadt rebellion" Paragraph 26

In 1939, Isaac Don Levine introduced Whittaker Chambers to Walter Krivitsky in New York City.

First, Krivitsky asked, " Ist die Sowjetregierung eine faschistische Regierung?

-- Is the Soviet Government a fascist government?

" to which Chambers assented.

" Du hast recht ," he said, " und Kronstadt war der Wendepunkt -- You are right, and Kronstadt was the turning point.

" Chambers explained: From Kronstadt during the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, the sailors of the Baltic Fleet had steamed their cruisers to aid the Communists in capturing Petrograd.

Their aid had been decisive ....

They were the first Communists to realize their mistake and the first to try to correct it.

When they saw that Communism meant terror and tyranny, they called for the overthrow of the Communist Government and for a time imperiled it.

They were bloodily destroyed or sent into Siberian slavery by Communist troops led in person by the Commissar of War, Leon Trotsky, and by Marshal Tukhachevsky, one of whom was later assassinated, the other executed, by the regime they then saved.