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 fire against revolutionary Kronstadt which has risen against the autocracy of the Communists to establish the true power of the Soviets.

Without shedding a drop of blood we, Red Army men, sailors, and Workers of Kronstadt have freed ourselves from the yoke of the Communists and have even preserved their lives. By the threat of artillery they want now to subject us again to their tyranny.

Not wishing bloodshed, we asked that nonpartisan delegates of the Petrograd proletariat be sent to us, that they may learn that Kronstadt is fighting for the Power of the Soviets. But the Communists have kept our demand from the workers of Petrograd and now they have opened fire—the usual reply of the pseudo Workers’ and Peasants’ Government to the demands of the laboring masses.

Let the workers of the whole world know that we, the defenders of Soviet Power, are guarding the conquests of the Social Revolution.

We will win or perish beneath the ruins of Kronstadt, fighting for the just cause of the laboring masses.

The workers of the world will be our judges. The blood of the innocent will fall upon the heads of the Communist fanatics drunk with authority.

Long live the Power of the Soviets!

The artillery bombardment of Kronstadt, which began on the evening of March 7, was followed by the attempt to take the fortress by storm. The attack was made from the north and the south by picked Communist troops clad in white shrouds, the color of which protectively blended with the snow lying thick on the frozen Gulf of Finland. These first terrible attempts to take the fortress by storm, at the reckless sacrifice of life, are mourned by the sailors in touching commiseration for their brothers in arms, duped into believing Kronstadt counter-revolutionary. Under date of March 8 the Kronstadt Izvestia wrote: We did not want to shed the blood of our brothers, and we did not fire a single shot until compelled to do so. We had to defend the just cause of the laboring people and to shoot—to shoot at our own 35