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Title: Alexei Borovoi Author: Anatoly Dubovik Date: October 2008 Language: en Topics: Alexei Borovoi, individualism, platformism, Russian revolution, biography, Kate Sharpley Library Source: Retrieved on 4th June 2022 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/228105 Notes: Published in KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 55–56. Translated by Szarapow.
Alexei Alexeyevich Borovoi was born on October 30, 1875 in Moscow in a
general’s family. However, he wasn’t attracted to a military career, and
after graduating from Moscow University he stayed on to teach at the
Faculty of Law. Borovoi’s sphere of interests was pretty wide, even in
his student years and included history, philosophy, political economy,
pedagogy, music, and literature. He had an interest in Marxism which he
greatly respected throughout his life.
In the Autumn of 1904 Borovoi was visiting Paris on a professional
business trip. A comprehensively educated person, he was intellectually
ready to accept anarchist teachings, however, he came to it quite on his
own, and quite unexpectedly even for himself: “No one taught anarchism
to me, didn’t persuade me, didn’t infect me,” – Borovoi remembered much
later – “Suddenly, out of some unknown depths a great, well-formed,
enlightening, united thought was born in me. With unusual clarity, with
victorious cogency a feeling of an attitude that was new to me was born
in me… I stood up from the bench in the Luxembourg Garden as an
enlightened, passionate, uncompromising anarchist, and I still remain
one.”
As an anarchist, Borovoi belonged for most of his life to the
individualist current, however, he never shared the extremities of
individualism such as the philosophical systems of Max Stirner and
Friedrich Nietzsche and always remained outside any strict confines of
movements and currents. But it is doubtless that in his person anarchism
has gained, to quote later researchers, “an adherent who was original,
romantic and devoid of any dogmatism,” a brilliant writer whose
“magnificent figurativeness, daring fabulousness of style and speech
betray a poet, an artist of the word, rather than what is commonly known
as a theorist.”
In the Autumn of 1905, when the revolution that had started a few month
before was at its peak, Borovoi returned to Russia and resumed work at
Moscow University. In April 1906 he read Russia’s first legal, open
lecture on anarchism which was a big success with the intelligentsia –
“Social ideals of modern humanity.”
The early Borovoi is characterized by an original synthesis of Marxist
views on sociology and history with an individualist philosophy that was
close to Stirnean views. He regarded the history of civilization as a
succession of social systems that replace one another and are notable
for the ever increasing degree of personal freedom. Feudal absolutism is
replaced by the bourgeois regime with democratic freedoms and
development of machinery and science. It will inevitably be replaced by
state socialism which will in a revolutionary manner destroy the
exploiters, the propertied classes, establish state control over all
economic and social life, and deal with social problems such as poverty
and unemployment. However, at the same time it will retain the spiritual
enslavement of humanity by the “all-embracing authority of socialist
chauvinism.” The development of humanity will be crowned by the society
of unlimited individual freedom naturally replacing socialism, –
Anarchy. Young Borovoi considered individualism to be the only
consistent anarchist system and saw in Kropotkin’s anarchist communism,
first of all, an internal contradiction between the individual and
society, the collective, as well as a denial of absolute personal
freedom. Sometimes he even proclaimed that communism and anarchism are
mutually exclusive concepts. Borovoi referred to the search for the way
to combine the individual’s absolute freedom with the interests of the
entire society as the “scientific theory of anarchism” and viewed it as
his chief task as a theorist. He saw the most promising ways to achieve
that in the maximum development of science and machinery which was
supposed to cause complete abundance of material welfare.
Starting from 1906, Borovoi lectured on anarchism in different Russian
cities and took part in the activities of the Logos publishing house
which printed anarchist literature without preliminary [government]
permission. He also wrote several articles for an “Individualist”
collection. The lectures often took the form of anti-government
propaganda, and Borovoi was even sentenced to a month in gaol for one.
But Borovoi himself remained unconnected with the immediate
revolutionary struggle and anarchist organisations of any sort, so the
numerous Russian anarcho-communists and syndicalists viewed him as a
faux anarchist who was in fact advocating parliamentary democracy in a
social-democratic spirit. Borovoi was particularly scathingly attacked
at the Amsterdam International anarchist congress in the Summer of 1907.
One of Russia’s leading anarchists Vladimir Zabrezhnev in his report
“Advocates of individualist anarchism in Russia” referred to his
anti-communist and individualist theories as “Nitzschean
phrase-mongering.”
In late 1910 Borovoi faced the threat of a court case related to the
anti-state direction of the Logos publishing house. Such a crime was
punishable by up to a year in gaol, so he preferred to escape abroad.
After settling in France, Borovoi got a job teaching political economy
and history at the Russian Popular University and at the Free College of
Social Sciences, the latter of which was founded by French anarchists.
His personal acquaintance with them got Borovoi interested in the
theories and practices of the French proletarian syndicalist movement
and caused him to fundamentally revise his own individualist attitude.
In his lectures Borovoi has now claimed support for revolutionary
syndicalism which denied parliamentarism and aimed for the
reconstruction of the society via social revolution. He still remained
quite sceptical of classic anarchist communism though.
In 1913 the Czarist government proclaimed an amnesty for political
criminals to coincide with the 300^(th) anniversary of the Romanov
dynasty. Upon his return to Russia Borovoi worked as a social and
political journalist for St. Petersburg and Moscow magazines. He was
also preparing a new work dedicated to the syndicalist movement. The
result of this work, the book Revolutionary Creativity and Parliament,
was published in 1917.
The second Russian revolution which started in February 1917 was greeted
not just by a philosopher who dreamt of abstract ideals of anarchy.
Borovoi was then an active propagandist who took part in the practical
work of organisations and groups of like-minded people. As early as
April 1917 Borovoi co-organised the syndicalist Federation of Unions of
Workers of Intellectual Labour which united teachers, doctors etc. He
also edited their paper Klich (The call). Unfortunately, the Federation
didn’t gain much support from the Russian intelligentsia and broke up in
late 1917. In the spring of 1918 Borovoi initiated the creation of the
Union of Ideological Propaganda of Anarchism and its printed organ,
daily newspaper Zhizn (Life). Borovoi’s comrades in the Union were
veterans of the revolutionary anarchist movement: Pyotr Arshinov, Iuda
Grossman-Roschin, and our old pal Vladimir Zabrezhnev who criticised
Borovoi so passionately just ten years ago.
As we’d already mentioned, individualism was inherent in Borovoi’s ideas
throughout his life, and his 1917 and 1918 articles, as well as his new
book Anarchism bear a remarkable imprint of these views. Denying any
authority and coercion, the writer never fails to emphasise that “for
anarchism never, under no circumstances, will harmony between the
personal and social principles be achieved. Their antinomy is
inevitable. But it is the stimulus for continuous development and
perfection of the individual, for denial of any ultimate ideals.” Thus
for Borovoi the chief importance is given not to Anarchism as the aim
but to Anarchy as the continuous quest for the aim: “No social ideal,
from the point of view of anarchism, could be referred to as absolute in
a sense that supposes it’s the crown of human wisdom, the end of social
and ethical quest of man.”
Zhizn newspaper was closed by the Soviet authorities in the Summer of
1918 along with other organs of anarchist propaganda. A year later his
comrades in the Union of Ideological Propaganda left the organisation.
Some joined the Bolsheviks, and some, like Arshinov, joined the mass
anarchist movement of the Ukraine, the Makhnovschina. Borovoi remained
the Union’s sole leader but he didn’t stop working for it. As late as
1922 he organised lectures on the history and theory of anarchism, and
participated in publishing classic anarchist literature. Borovoi
actually propagated anarchism among the students of Moscow University
and other institutes of higher education. He lectured on the history of
socialism, the workers’ movement, the newest trends of capitalism etc.
It has to be mentioned that his high standing as a scientist was
confirmed by the granting of the status of professor by the Faculty of
Social Sciences of the Moscow State University in 1919.
Borovoi’s views kept changing over time. By the early 1920s they have
shed the remainder of individualism and gotten closer to classic
anarchism. Borovoi himself referred to his views as “anarcho-humanism.”
Now he accepted a possibility of conciliation between social and
personal interests on the basis of socialist collectivism. Borovoi’s
views of the time were set out in his most thought-through and deep
book, 1921’s Individual and Society in the Anarchist Worldview.
In late 1921, using the attempt of the students of the Communist
University to organise an open debate “Anarchism vs. Marxism” (the two
contrary ideologies were to be defended by Borovoi and the member of the
Bolshevik Central Committee Nikolai Bukharin) as a pretext, the
authorities ousted Borovoi from the Moscow State University – he was
accused of being anti-Soviet. In Autumn 1922 he was stripped of his
status as a professor and banned from teaching. After that Alexei
Alexeyevich had to master the profession of an economist. But even in
the 1920s, when legal anarchism was being put under increasing pressure,
he continued to play an active role in the anarchist and social
movement. He worked as an editor at the anarcho-syndicalist publishing
house Golos Truda (Voice of Labour), was a member of several historical
societies and the Scientific section of All-Russian Public Committee
(VOK) for the immortalization of Peter Kropotkin. His participation in
VOK was particularly significant as it permitted him to lecture at the
Kropotkin Museum which until 1929 remained the only legal refuge of
anarchism in the land of Soviets. Borovoi was the secretary of the
Scientific section, and in 1925 he was elected as the deputy chairman of
the Committee.
In the Summer of 1927 a group of veteran Moscow anarchists (including
Borovoi) attempted to organise a campaign to support fellow anarchists
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti who were sentenced to death in the
USA. They expected that the campaign, aside from its immediate purpose,
would permit them to openly propagate anarchist ideas as well as to
raise their voice in support of exiled and gaoled anarchists in the
USSR. The anarchists repeatedly applied for a permission for a
solidarity meeting from the Moscow city Soviet but in the end it was
denied.
However, the short existence of the Bureau for the Defense of Sacco and
Vanzetti played an important role in consolidating the Moscow
anarchists. Around veterans such as Vladimir Barmash, Alexei Borovoi,
Nikolai Rogdayev, and Vladimir Khudolei some of the “old guard” who
didn’t abandon their views as well as youths who were just discovering
anarchism started to gather.
They formed an underground group which established connections with the
staff of the Paris-based anarchist magazine Delo Truda (Cause of Labour)
which was published by Arshinov and Nestor Makhno. After studying the
famous Platform they took it as the foundation of their views. Borovoi’s
practical participation in the activities of the Barmash-Khudolei group
included compiling the collection of articles Ten Years of the October
[Revolution] which gave a political and economic analysis of the first
decade of Bolshevik rule. The text of the collection was illegally
transferred abroad and published as a pamphlet in Paris. Borovoi also
organised the struggle against “anarcho-mystics” – “an ugly outgrowth on
the body of anarchism,” as he characterized this “esoteric” teaching
which attempted to replace the scientific atheism and class approach of
Kropotkin and his followers with vague “Templar” legends about angels
and demons and reactionary arguments about the uselessness of
revolutionary struggle and any attempts to violently transform society.
In early 1929 Delo Truda published a collective letter by the Moscow
anarchists who greeted the activity of the magazine and the group that
published it as the only thing that can lead revolutionary anarchism out
of crisis. The letter was co-signed by Borovoi, and such an appraisal of
the activities of the Platformists – who were in favour of a single
centralised organisation of anarchist communists, of comradely
discipline and responsibility; all of which were things ten years ago
unthinkable for Borovoi – signified the final break with individualist
anarchism.
In May 1929 Borovoi was arrested by the OGPU, along with other Moscow
comrades. They were accused of “active work to create illegal anarchist
groups in Moscow, distribution of anti-Soviet literature, connections
with anarchist emigration.” On July 12 the Special Conference of the
OGPU sentenced him to three years’ exile to Vyatka.
Liberation from this exile didn’t bring any serious easing of the
conditions of life for the old anarchist. The security organs forbade
Borovoi from living in the large cities and limited his choice of jobs.
He spent the last years of his life in Vladimir working as an
accountant, in isolation and poverty.
Alexei Alexeyevich died on November 21, 1935.
The Russian State Archive of Literature and Art still holds Borovoi’s
sizeable personal archives. It includes a manuscript of his book about
Fyodor Dostoevsky, correspondence with Andrei Bely, Alexander Blok,
Valery Bryusov, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Chayanov and many other
artists and scientists, plus unfinished memoirs. One day Borovoi’s
unpublished works on philosophy, history, anarchism will be extracted
from the archives…