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Title: Organization as Ideology Author: Michael Confino Date: 2010 Language: en Topics: Russia, anarchist history, anarchist organization Source: Russian History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2010), pp. 179-207
Michael Confino is Emeritus Professor of History, Tel Aviv University
From the first years after 1900, the Russian anarchists debated the
"question of the organization," and examined how they should organize
the movement so that they may carry on its political activities and
secure freedom of expression and of spontaneous action both for its
members and for the masses. Opposed as they were to all kind of
hierarchic, centralized, and pyramidal types of organization, most of
the Russian anarchists preferred the creation of independent and
autonomous groups whose members would be linked by a community of ideas
and feelings. (The first groups appeared in Russia in 1903.) Under the
influence of classical anarchist thinkers like Bakunin, Kropotkin, and
Malatesta, some of them saw in anarchism not only an ideology, but a way
of life, and tried to create cells in the image of the future society.
Everyday realities compelled many of them to adopt more efficient and
practical solutions. The most frequent terms used in their vocabulary
(and examined here) reveal their state of mind and ways of action, terms
such as self-rule, initiative, autonomous action, independence,
creativity, and free activity. Their groups were usually homogenous in
terms of their social, educational, and national or ethnic composition.
They rejected the practice of collecting members' fees or donations. As
a result they faced the problem of how to finance their activities. A
major debate ensued whether or not to use "expropriations" (eksy), armed
attacks on state institutions or private enterprises, for gathering
funds, and how such actions were viewed by the masses. The Revolution of
1905, in which the anarchists participated actively, had important
repercussions on their views and ways of organizing.
During most of the long twentieth century, and particularly between 1917
and 1991, the political folklore and the popular representations in
Russia and abroad held that the Bolsheviks were the great winners in the
struggle of the Russian liberation movement against the tsarist
autocracy, whereas the anarchists and the other opposition movements
seemed to have been the big losers, thrown, so to say, "in the dustbin
of history" by the march of time.
The Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 reinforced this
impression, and one of the reasons (among others) for the image that
this event projected was the conviction that the Bolsheviks won because
they had a better organization, while the anarchists lost because they
had none. Thereafter, thanks to the entrenched ideas and the opaque
screen of seventy years of Soviet propaganda, this impression persisted
and was boosted by the Spanish Civil War in which many a commentator
elaborated on the merry disorder in the anarchists' ranks and the
staunch discipline in the Communist organization.
Then came 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union. The "1917 paradigm"
collapsed in historiography. This unpredicted event changed the terms of
the equation. If in 1917 the Bolsheviks won, it turned out that their
great tactical victory then, led in the long run to their great
strategic defeat in 1991. As for the Russian anarchists, they did not
lose anything—because they did not hold anything, neither power nor
territory except for the shifting limits of the areas controlled at any
given moment by Nestor Makhno's anarchist Insurgent Revolutionary Army
in the Ukraine and his "republic on tachanki," which was crushed not "by
history" but by a surprise attack of its ally, Trotsky's Red Army,
against Makhno's headquarters in Huliai-Pole on 26 November 1920. [1]
Crushed, persecuted, jailed, and again in emigration under the Soviets
as under the tsars, the anarchists had a generous ideal and an
optimistic political vision, and this invites the question: with what
type or organization did they expect to achieve their goals? How did
they intend to struggle against the old order and for the realization of
the future society of their dreams?
The question of the forms of organization in revolutionary movements is
rarely a technical one, generated only by divergent opinions on matters
of expediency and efficiency. Quite often it covers the maneuvering by
party leaders in order to achieve key positions or enhance their
influence within the movement itself. In other instances questions of
organization are essentially ideological or closely linked to
ideological issues, and the case of the Russian anarchists may be a good
illustration in this respect. Indeed, for the anarchists, the question
of the forms of organization was a fundamental one since the formation
of the first anarchist groups in Russia in 1903 and it became critical
under the influence of the 1905 Revolution, as well as during the
political repression in the last years of the tsarist empire and the
beginning of the Soviet regime. Some of the issues related to the
"organization question" had been discussed already by the vibrant and
colorful anarchist movement in France in the 1880s and 1890s, [2] (hence
their subsequent influence on anarchist groups in other countries), and
Peter Kropotkin, at that time an exile in France and England, who
actively participated in these debates. [3] These views and terminology
included, for instance, the question of the desirable and apposite modes
of organization of the anarchists cells, the nature of the links with
the other revolutionary and socialist movements, and the attitude of the
anarchists toward the workers trade unions and syndicats, and finally
the use of terror and of action directe, rendered in Russian as priamoi
otpor, priamoe vozdeistvie or priamaia bor'ba. [4] The international
anarchist movement, and in particular the groups in Spain, Russia,
Italy, South America, Bohemia, and the Balkans, followed closely the
exchange of views of the French anarchists in an effort to evaluate what
could be relevant and applicable in the specific social, national, and
international conditions in which their own movements operated, and
within their own popular traditions of rebellion and protest. [5]
The purpose of this essay is to examine several ideological and tactical
issues in Russian anarchism as reflected in the debates on the
movement's organization when the first anarchist groups in the empire
were formed, and to do so, whenever possible, from the point of view of
the individual anarchists themselves, and by indicating—where
appropriate—their own expressions and vocabulary which convey to a
certain extent their mindset and mentalities. More precisely, the
questions examined here are: How should the anarchists organize
themselves so that they may at one and the same time carry on their
political activities and secure the freedom of expression and of
spontaneous action both of the members of the movement and of the
masses? This essay addresses the common core of ideas and attitudes of
the main anarchist ideological trends and subcultures in the period from
the eve of the 1905 Revolution and its aftermath—Anarchists-Communists,
Anarcho-Syndicalists, Novomirtsy, Chernoznamentsy, Beznachal'tsy,
Anarkhisty-Obshchinniki—while eventually indicating the differences in
their respective views on given issues. [6] Most of these groups had
supporters in exile abroad--in France, Switzerland, London, and New
York--who participated actively in the ideological debates of the
movement and in the preparation and diffusion of printed material, but
evidently not in the daily life of the groups which they followed
closely at a distance. In terms of their geographical dispersion in the
Empire, around 1905 the anarchist groups were to be found mainly in
European Russia, roughly west of a line drawn from Riga to Tiflis, and
including Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belorussia, Ukraine, Bessarabia,
southern Russia, Georgia, and the Pale of Settlement. From 1905 on, the
anarchist movement began to expand eastward to Great Russia (an area of
predominant Bolshevik implantation), in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhnii
Novgorod, Penza, Ekaterinburg, Tambov, and Zvenigorod.
The anarchists in Russia were a multinational movement with considerable
participation of national minorities and a high percentage of Jews and
Georgians. Great Russians seem to have represented about one third of
the membership (compared to nearly 80 percent in the Bolshevik Party,
and 65 percent in the SR Party). It was mostly a movement of workers and
artisans, not of lumpen-proletarians and declasses, and among the
revolutionary parties it had probably the lowest percentage of
intellectuals. It was very neatly a youth movement, and it is roughly
estimated that by 1905 about 60 percent of the anarchists were under
twenty years of age (compared to 40 percent of the SRs, 20 percent of
the Bolsheviks, and 5 percent of the Mensheviks). They were younger,
more militant, and on the left of the Bolsheviks in the political
spectrum. Other comparisons, such as "rank and file" versus "activists,"
for instance, are difficult to make because, unlike other parties, every
anarchist had to be an activist; this applies also to the level of local
leaders, national leaders, or top leadership—because there were none in
the anarchist movement. It may be said tentatively that, as a general
rule, the greater the activism and militancy of a movement, the lower
the age of its membership. The age of the terrorists in each movement
may also serve as an indicator: in 1905, two-thirds of those belonging
to the SRs were under twenty-five years old, while two-thirds of the
anarchists were under twenty-one. The proportion of women in the
revolutionary parties, although sizable, has not yet been established
with reliability. As for the total number of members in these parties,
the estimates vary greatly: in 1905 through 1907 (including Poland), the
Russian anarchists counted around 15,000-16,000 followers; the
Bolsheviks, between 40,000 and 46,000; the Mensheviks, from 38,000 to
50,000; the Socialist Revolutionaries, 40,000; the Bund, 33,000; the
Zionist-Socialist Workers Party (Z.S.), 26,000; Poalei Zion, 16,000; and
SERP (Jewish Socialist Workers Party), 13,000. [7] These figures should
be viewed against the background of a total population of the Russian
Empire in 1900 of 135 million inhabitants (including Finland), with an
urban population of approximately 15 million (but, of course, these
overall numbers are meaningless for understanding the relatively great
scope of the Jewish movements, for instance, which were concentrated in
a much more limited geographic area in the Empire [the Northern and the
Southern Pale], and with a much lower relevant population of less than 4
million Jews.) In this spectrum of radical and revolutionary movements,
some were well organized, some less so. There were also fluctuations in
the number of members, due to internal or external factors; thus in
1908, the "Azef Affair" shattered the organization of the Socialist
Revolutionaries and their numbers dwindled considerably. [8] It seems
that in times of repression the anarchist groups withstood better the
police onslaught and showed a greater resilience than the cells of the
centralized parties.
What were the specific characteristics of the anarchists with regard to
the complex ideological and practical issues that were related to the
question of how they should organize themselves in order to carry on
their underground political activity (which was illegal in Russia) and
to achieve their ideals and their goals in the short run as well as in
the distant future? This was an arduous issue in every radical movement,
and in a sense it was even more difficult and complicated for the
anarchists, because of several ideological presuppositions that
distinguished them from the other movements. [9]
Notwithstanding a widely shared view, most of the anarchists with the
exception of the anarchists-individualists did not oppose every kind of
organization. [10] First and foremost, they were against all forms of
hierarchic organization (ierarkhicheskaia; lestnichnaia organizatsiia).
In their view, the prototype and the symbol of the centralized form of
organization was the state, the source of all evils and the main cause
of the existing illnesses in society such as inequality, exploitation,
lack of freedom, submission to authority, and repression of spontaneity.
The shadow of the nature of the state—as they saw it—was always present
in their discussions on the subject of organization. For instance, when
they call their opponents—the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Bund, the
Social Democrats (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, "iskrists or semi-iskrists,"
iskrovtsy iii poluiskrovtsy)—"statesocialists" or "statist-socialists"
(sotsialisty-gosudarstvenniki; socialistes d'Etat), [11] they do so for
two main reasons. First, because ideologically these parties tend to
create a socialist state; and second, because practically they are
organized according to the state-like principles of hierarchy,
centralization, and "state Jacobinism" (gosudarstvennoe iakobinstvo.)
[12] These two aspects—the ends (the future society) and the means (the
organization) to implement it—are closely linked in the anarchists'
worldview: the political action and the goals are shaped and determined
by the form of organization. As they put it, one could not expect that a
centralized and hierarchic party would bring about a socialist society;
it could create only a "socialist" centralized and hierarchic state
(which for the anarchists was the very negation of socialism, and for
that reason they called occasionally the SDs socialists-traitors). [13]
Such a party is already a state in miniature because its structure
mirrors the hierarchic structure of the state and there is no hope or
possibility that such a party could create an egalitarian society of
free individuals. Addicts to the opium of vertical organizing cannot
lead to horizontal types of association and communities. [14] And
centralization breeds inevitably "revolutionary bureaucratism." [15]
Moreover, according to the anarchists, those referred to as "state
socialists," particularly the Social Democrats, needed this kind of
hierarchic and centralized party structure for the achievement of their
goals, and more precisely because what they wanted and were planning to
do was a vast state putsch (gosudarsvennyi perevorot), a coup d'etat. To
that effect, they needed their members to be organized according to the
rules of discipline and obedience to the tenets of the "orthodox church
of Marxism" (pravoslavnaia tserkov' marksizma) or of the "Marxist bible"
(marksistkaia bibliia). [16] They did not want a membership in which the
spirit of rebellion (buntovskii dukh) was alive, as they did not want
members who would act spontaneously and on their own initiative (lichnyi
pochin); they actually hated spontaneity and were afraid of it. They
needed discipline because it offered them the possibility to direct and
control the party from above (sverkhu), on orders from the party bosses,
that is the Social Democratic chiefs (sotsial-demokraticheskoe
nacharstvo). "Bossism" (general'shchina; verkhovodstvo), not
spontaneity, was their most praised rule of conduct, and the cult of the
personalities (kul't lichnostei) was the means to ensure it. [17]
In the anarchists' view, the state-socialist parties needed discipline
and a strong organization (which they derided at times with expressions
like organizatsionnaia organizovannost': "organized organization) [18]
because their most important task, and a very difficult one at that
(because of the spirit of rebellion of the masses), was to procrastinate
and postpone the coming of the revolution. They wished, till then, to
keep their membership (whom the anarchists called edinovertsy:
"coreligionists") and the workers waiting patiently: discipline and
keeping them under control were the means for preventing the revolution.
The Social Democratic chiefs were always waiting: they waited for "the
right time" and for "the proper moment." And they affirmed that "the
proper time" would be reached gradually; till then, they had to prepare
themselves, organize their followers, and get ready--which also required
a lot of time. For this reason the anarchists called the Social
Democrats "gradualists" (postepenovtsy), and their tactics, "
postepenovshchina" (the French anarchists used the derisive and
ungrammatical term 7volutionnards" and "endormeurs du progressisme').
For the Social Democrats it was always too soon (prezhdevremenno) for
revolutionary action; for these opportunists (prezhdevrementsy) real
action was always inopportune, "the time not yet ripe," and the
"necessary conditions" not yet in store. As for the anarchists, they did
not hold that in order to act one had to wait for the emergence of a
"revolutionary situation"; their voluntaristic vision assumed (wrongly)
that the time was always ripe for revolutionary action. [19] The SDs'
and SRs' debates on their respective long term programs of action
(programma maksimum) and programs for the immediate future (programma
minimum) were considered by the anarchists (wrongly, again) as a device
to conceal these parties' opportunism, and as such they were often
derided with untranslatable expressions as "maksimal'nyi minimum and
minimal'nyi maksimum." [20] Similarly, the SDs and the SRs were accused
for turning the program of "minimal demands" into their "programma
maksimum," and for this reason, they were considered by the anarchists
as "minimalists" in revolutionary militancy. [21] Peter Kropotkin
believed that "Social Democracy represented a compromise between workers
socialism and bourgeois individualism." [22]
To be sure, the anarchists were not always right in their criticism and
suspicions of the SDs and the SRs. Neither was the Bolsheviks' summary
dismissal and contempt of the anarchists' theories and program just or
accurate. [23] However, there was a big difference in this doctrinal
rivalry and mutual rejection, which Leszek Kolakowski succinctly
formulated: "Anarchists indeed are strongest when they criticize Marxism
as an infallible prescription for despotism. Marxists are strongest when
they attack anarchism as a puerile Utopia. Both are right, alas... but a
big difference between the Marxist and the anarchist blueprint for
universal hilarity is that the former is feasible and the latter is
not." [24]
The Social Democrats' program required strong discipline and control,
which could be achieved by a centralized and hierarchic party, in which
every member gives orders, fulfills orders, or both, and for that reason
the anarchists called such parties "autocratic" (samoderzhtsy). [25]
Eric Hobsbawm writes: "The theoretical attitude with which bolshevism
approached anarchist and anarchosyndicalist movements after 1917, was
quite clear. Marx, Engels and Lenin had all written on the subject, and
in general there seemed to be no ambiguity or mutual inconsistency about
their views." One of these views stipulated that
"in addition to the characteristic readiness of Marxists to see the
power of a revolutionary state used for revolutionary purposes, Marxism
was actively committed to a firm belief in the superiority of
centralization to decentralization or federalism and (especially in the
Leninist version) to a belief in the indispensability of leadership,
organization and discipline and the inadequacy of any movement based on
mere 'spontaneity'."
(In the French version of the article this last sentence is rendered
ironically, as: "[Lenind stigmatisait l'inefficacite du `spontaneisme'
anarchiste.") [26]
And there was another reason why the SDs needed such a party: their goal
was to seize power and to rule, and this kind of organization permitted
to train and prepare the personnel of the future government. The Central
Committee was a sort of government in anticipation, a kind of "shadow
cabinet" fascinated by the "mirage of power" (mirazh vlasti). This is
why the anarchists kept asserting that the Social Democrats' program to
replace the capitalist state by a socialist one amounted to replacing
the Russian autocratic tsars by Social Democratic tsars. For the
anarchists, the very existence of such an institution as the Central
Committee, the party's holy of holies (sviatia sviatykh partii) was in
itself a disgrace. [27] They derided the belief that the Central
Committee was omnipotent and omniscient, and that it was capable to
decide when and where action should be taken, and they called its
members by a variety of untranslatable derogatory expressions meaning
"intellectuals' party centers," "intellectual leaders addicted to
committee-meetings," (such as " komitetchiki," "intelligentskoe iadro
komitetchikov," "intelligentskie tsentry," "general'stvuiushchaia
intelligentsiia [partii]," "gospoda zanimaiushchiesiia bumagomaraniem"),
and their activity "igra v nachal'stvo." (playing the big bosses). [28]
That is why, they argued, revolutions begin when the parties' central
committees do not expect them at all. They found a confirmation of this
view when the revolutionary crisis of October 1905 occurred while the
delegates of the Sixth Congress of the Jewish Bund were travelling
abroad to attend the Congress' sessions in Zurich. [29] The Central
Committee was conceived as an instrument in the struggle for state
power, but in the meantime the focus of the struggle for power was
within the party: this deplorable outcome seemed inevitable in
hierarchic organizations.
Another public body whose terminology the anarchists often borrowed in
describing their opponents and particularly the SDs was the Church.
Thus, when they spoke about exclusion from the party, they said
"otluchenie of tserkvi" (excommunication from the Church). They said
also "sladkorechivie uveshchaniia popov ortodoksal'nogo sotsializma"
(the sweet exhortations of the priests of orthodox socialism),
"iezuitizm s.-d." (the Jesuitism of the SDs), and c, nepogreshimykh pap
revoliutsii" (the infallible popes of the revolution). [30]
The anarchists' attitude toward the shortcomings and weaknesses of
hierarchic and centralized parties may, therefore, be summarized as
follows. The hierarchic and centralized parties destroy the
revolutionary cause and action, and they kill the spirit of rebellion
and spontaneity. The Center decides everything and does not leave any
initiative to individual members and local groups. Centralism transforms
the worker into a tool in the hands of a force that acts as a preceptor
or tutor (opekun; nastavnik) and under the tutorship of a party of
intellectuals (partiino-intelligentskaia opeka), [31] a force that
stands outside and above the worker's will, and deprives him of any
initiative and independence (samovol'naia deiatel'nost'). Such parties
destroy any audacity of thought, and breed extreme caution and
circumspection in their central committees; their structure and, in
particular, the principle of centralization, generate inevitably the
formation of a party bureaucracy. Finally, in spite of their most
praised quality—unity of action—they rather provoke splits and scissions
instead of avoiding them, because, as a rule, decisions are arrived at
by majority vote which implies the submission of the minority to this
kind of decisions.
If this was the anarchists' criticism of other revolutionary
organizations, what was their own program in this respect? With regard
to the theoretical approach, their reasoning was a consistent extension
of the principles they used towards others. With respect to the
practical forms of organization, theirs amounted to turning upside down
the principles of the "state socialists," although, as we will see, the
implementation of the anarchists' blueprint was quite difficult in real
life.
Anarchists were not organized in political parties but in independent
and autonomous groups linked by a community of ideas and attitudes and
not by an obligatory organizational discipline. From the theoretical
point of view, they posited that if the centralized and hierarchic
organization is state-like, theirs should be in the image of the future
stateless society. Thus, the anarchists established a link between their
ideal regarding the future society and the form of their organization in
the present. In this perspective, the organization should entail no
subordination, no hierarchy, no centralization, no elective systems, no
executive bodies, and no impediments to spontaneity and free action of
its members. It should be based on the "libertarian principle of
organization" (svobodnicheski i printsip organizatsii), [32] and should
represent, in sum, a mosaic of free and autonomous groups, freely
organized by their members. Consequently, this form of organization
would be also a prefiguration of the future society, and by the same
token it would participate in the creation of new forms of social life
before the revolution. Anarchosyndicalists sought to create even under
capitalism "free associations of free producers" that would engage in
militant struggle and prepare to take over the organization of
production on a democratic basis. These associations would serve as "a
practical school of anarchism." [33] This view of the form of
organization carries the imprint of the thought of the classical
anarchist thinkers—Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, and Errico
Malatesta—on anarchism as "a way of life." Indeed, Bakunin often
asserted that "the workers' organizations create not only the ideas, but
also the facts of the future itself in the prerevolutionary period, and
that they embody in themselves the structure of the future society."
[34] Implicit in this view was a belief in "natural man" as more
fundamental and historically superior to "political man," as well as the
belief that a social ideal implied obligations here and now; because
people with consistent views should avoid an ambivalent attitude such as
"on the one hand—the ideal, on the other hand—the exact opposite in
practice."
A good example of this attitude was the doctrinal faith in the withering
away of the state. Both anarchists and Social Democrats professed a
belief in a future stateless society, but their means to achieve it
differed. The Social Democrats—or so affirmed the anarchists—were making
every effort for strengthening the principle of the state. The
anarchists did not rely on the marvels of dialectical magic
(dialekticheskoe volshebstvo) and tried to create already the cells of
the future society. Lenin's usual reply to this view was that the
revolutionary party had to devise its action not according to the ideal
toward which it aspired, but according to the present situation in which
it was acting. In addition, Lenin invariably asserted that all attempts
to create cells of the future society within capitalism were doomed and
were motivated by petty bourgeois impatience to skip over the hardships
of the struggle against capitalism.
The main features, then, of the anarchist organization were its being a
cell of the future society, based on self-rule (samoorganizatsiia) and
on the equality of all its members, while each group enjoyed complete
freedom with no externally imposed discipline. The major ideas that
informed this view were conveyed by a set of terms frequently found in
anarchist writings and everyday speech, like "initiative" (initsiativa),
"autonomous activity" (samodeiatel'nost'), "independence"
(nezavisimost'), "creativity" (tvorchestvo), "free activity"
(samovol'naia deiatel'nost). How were these theoretical principles
implemented in the practical activity of the anarchists?
The typical anarchist organization, in theory as well as in practice,
was a relatively small and intimate group of people who knew each other
well, wanted to belong to that group, be together with these particular
members of the group, and participate in their activities. This rule was
followed practically always, and if some members decided not to belong
to the group, it would either dissolve or these members would leave it
without ceasing to be anarchists and without ceasing to be considered as
such by the group's fellow members. The anarchist groups were based on
the principle of Gemeinschafr, [35] and were in a way a kind of love
affair between their members. Indeed, one of the most important
features, and the one most often mentioned, was that the groups were
based on a community of ideas and feelings (obshchnost' osnovnykh idei i
chuvstv). It is interesting to note that their terms of reference were,
in addition to the future society, the Chaikovskii Circle and the
underground groups of the 1870s, which were mostly populist-oriented,
and were also well known from personal experience by such "old- timers"
like Peter Kropotkin and Varlaam Cherkezov who had participated in them
and were now influential members of the anarchist movement.
A conference of Russian anarchists-communists in exile held in London in
September 1906 discussed, among other subjects, "the organization
question." [36] It adopted the following resolution: "The Russian
anarchists reject any form of hierarchic organization, which suits the
parties of the state-socialists (sotsialistoy gosudarstvennikov), and
work to create for themselves another type of organization based on the
free agreement (svobodnoe soglashenie; libre entente) between
independent and autonomous groups." It was also stipulated that a
necessary condition for the lasting stability and success of this type
of organization was the close links between all the members of each
group, and, therefore, that it was better to have—in the cities and
towns—several small groups rather than a big one. [37] The International
Anarchist Congress held in Amsterdam the following year on August 26-31
dealt during four sessions with the topic "Anarchism and Organization,"
and adopted a resolution quite similar to that of the Russian
anarchists' conference in London. Drafted by Amedee Dunois, it read:
"The anarchist meeting in Amsterdam, 27 August 1907,
"Considering that the ideas of anarchy and organization, far from being
incompatible as is often stated, complement and clarify each other, as
the very principle of anarchy lies in the free organization of
producers;
"Considering that individual [action], important as it may be, cannot
make up for the lack of collective action of a combined movement, to the
same degree that collective action cannot make up for the lack of
individual action;
"Considering that the organization of militant forces would ensure new
development of propaganda and could only accelerate the penetration of
the ideas of federalism and revolution into the working class;
"Considering that workers' organization, based on common interests, does
not exclude an organization based on shared aspirations and ideas;
"Are [sic] of the opinion that comrades from every country should
proceed to form anarchist groups and federate the groups once they have
been formed."
This motion was completed by an addendum proposed by Errico Malatesta
and Karel Vohruzek (a representative of the anarchist movement in
Bohemia):
"The Anarchist Federation is an association of groups and individuals in
which no one can impose his will nor belittle the initiative of others.
Its goal with regard to the present society is to change all the moral
and economic conditions and accordingly it supports the struggle with
all appropriate means. " [38]
The Russian anarchists usually preferred the existence of small and
intimate groups; the admission of a new member in the group was done
only by agreement of all its members. In the group itself all the
members were equal, with no subordination, no committees and no
delegation of powers, and all matters were discussed by the entire group
in its assembly (skhod; skhodka). At the end of the discussion,
decisions were not arrived at by majority vote, but by attempts to
convince each other. According to the anarchist view, decisions taken by
majority vote, or opinions held by a majority, were not necessarily
correct, right, or just. "We, as members of the revolutionary movement,"
they wrote, "which represents such a tiny minority of the people, we
should be the first to understand the fallacy of majority rule, so dear
to the Social Democrats in general and the Bolsheviks in particular."
[39] Thus, the opinion of the majority was never binding for the
minority, but only for those who freely agreed with it. Usually the
group would try to arrive at unanimous decisions and reach a consensus.
Only in cases of issues of principle and if consensus turned out to be
impossible, would some members separate and create a new anarchist
group. Cases like that appear not to have been exceptional, and occurred
without excommunications and vituperations.
By and large, this internal system worked well because there was also a
strict selection in the admission of new members. In fact, the groups
were not open to everyone. In addition to the subjective considerations
that may have been influential in each case of a new application, there
were also objective criteria such as the rule that groups should be
composed of homogeneous elements (odnorodnye elementy), and even
"homogeneous social elements" (odnorodnye sotsial'nye element)) and
common social origin (obshchnost' sotsiarnogo polozhenia). The groups
were formed according to the rule that it is better to break down a
group in several smaller ones than to include in it diverse and
heterogeneous elements (raznorodnye element)). The purpose of this
approach was to secure the best conditions for close links among the
members, create strong group-solidarity, avoid internal tensions and
personal conflicts, secure mutual trust, and ensure unity of action and
spontaneity.
What the anarchists aimed at and what they obtained in reality was the
formation of groups according to social origin, education, age, and
nationality. With regard to the socio-economic situation, there were,
for instance, different groups and separate skhodki of workers,
artisans, peasants, intellectuals, and soldiers. [40]
The groups were also strictly age groups, with the inner structure and
behavior of youth gangs. A most interesting characteristic concerned the
homogeneous formation of groups by nationality. Thus, in multinational
cities like Baku there were groups whose membership was respectively
almost entirely Tatar, Armenian, Russian, or Persian. The anarchist
paper. Buntar' reported in 1906 that in Bialystok, "some time ago the
Polish comrades in the three existing groups left them and created a
new, fourth one." [41] In Odessa, Bialystok, Warsaw and other cities,
Jewish groups almost invariably did not have members of other
nationalities, and this tradition continued abroad in emigration, such
as, for instance, the Jewish anarchist group in Whitechapel and the
London Federation of Jewish Anarchists. [42] This differentiation of the
groups along national lines was considered normal, and did not represent
an issue or a problem. [43]
As for the relations among the anarchist groups, they usually
established links of cooperation and exchange of information, while each
of them remained free and autonomous within a federation-like structure.
The relations among the groups were based on the principle of a free
consensus (svobodnoe soglashenie) arrived at by exchange of views
(soveshchaniia) in a voluntary association among a certain number of
groups (assotsiatsiia grupp) or sometimes, among the groups and regional
or national federations that each group was free to join. These
principles applied to the groups in Russia as well as to those in
emigration. Loose federative ties and a flat horizontal juxtaposition of
autonomous independent cells were considered more congenial than any
kind of pyramidal structure. As Peter Kropotkin put it in a letter to a
fellow-anarchist: "We [anarchists] will never participate in the
creation of any kind of pyramidal organization—economic, political or
educational—even if it is a revolutionary one." [44] According to the
anarchists, theirs was also a good system for activities in underground
conditions, and a less vulnerable one to the infiltration of
agents-provocateurs and of police informants. This was correct, since
for lack of a center, there was no possibility for an Azef-type affair
at the center of the movement, which the anarchists called tsentrarnaia
provokatsiia, to occur.
Kropotkin wrote: "All the parties [except the anarchists' are led by
their Azefs; and we owe this perversion to Social-Democracy, because it
is its political perversion that has generated the wider one." [45]
Nevertheless, some groups were infiltrated by police informants at the
local level. [46]
All in all, the best kind of inter-group organization was considered to
be a free federation voluntarily arrived at and not through the election
of permanent committees. Such committees always tended to become, and
finally were, like any government, an obstacle to the free and
harmonious development of the movement. The best way to proceed was by
consultation between the groups on given specific issues; the decisions
of these consultations were not obligatory for the groups. The
historical experience indicated, in the anarchists' view, that in spite
of the absence of formal discipline and compulsion, agreement and unity
of action were easily achieved by way of consultation. In addition, this
method preserved among the anarchists what they considered to be the
most valuable element during a revolutionary situation: spontaneity and
the capability for spontaneous action (sposobnost' lichnogo pochina).
The outcome of the anarchist type of organization was freedom from party
discipline (and this was a factor of attraction for members of the
Social Democratic and the Socialist Revolutionary parties); there was a
lack of tension between the rank and file and the leadership (for lack
of a leadership), and a great flexibility in the groups which could
always disband and reappear again. On the other hand, this flexibility
led also to a greater instability (which, incidentally, renders the
study of this topic and the gathering of statistical data more
difficult). It was around 1905, when these principles of organization
had to prove the efficiency of the groups' activity in a revolutionary
situation, that the debate on this organizational question became more
and more intensive, and the search for better modes of organizing an
imperative one.
The activities of the groups included usually organizing the workers,
propaganda among the peasants, periodical publications, leaflets,
setting up printing presses and laboratories for preparing explosives,
buying arms, smuggling to Russia anarchist publications printed abroad,
smuggling anarchist activists from Russia across the border, giving
financial support to workers on strike, and (depending on the group's
tactical beliefs) terrorist actions. The question is, of course, where
was the money coming from to support these activities? Where and how did
the groups find the funds to carry on these tasks and implement their
program of action?
sinews of war).
The ways of financing the groups' activities is perhaps one of the most
interesting chapters of anarchist organizational theory and practice. As
a matter of principle, the groups did not require fees from their
members, and they were also opposed to asking contributions (sbory) from
the workers. This practice stemmed from several considerations. First,
the anarchists posited that their members' and the workers' earnings
were so low that it was improper to reduce even more their starvation
wages by collecting fees or contributions. Moreover, since the
anarchists were protesting against the workers' exploitation, they could
not contradict themselves and put an additional burden on the masses.
Besides, such a source of financial support seemed of very little value
because the money that could be raised would not amount to considerable
sums (due to the poverty of the anarchist followers). In short, such a
way of money-raising was neither fair, nor moral, nor efficient. In
their words: "It is obvious that with this kind of funding no
revolutionary organization could exist, and as a matter of fact none
exists." [47] To illustrate this train of thought, let us see how the
anarchists viewed the Social Democratic Party's way of financing its
activities.
As a rule, the anarchists were convinced (with or without proofs) that
the SDs had plenty of money. As the author of a bulletin article put it:
"The socialists-democrats are always well provided with funds. For them
the question how to survive and with what financial means to carry on
their activities—this question does not exist." (Note that the author
does not use the name "Social Democrats," but intentionally and
systematically "socialists-democrats" with a pejorative connotation.)
[48] Second, the anarchists were convinced that an informal alliance
existed between the Social Democrats and wide circles of the
bourgeoisie. For them this was apparently consistent logically and
ideologically: the Social Democratic Party received substantial amounts
of money from the bourgeoisie because it was a reformist party, it
wanted a bourgeois revolution, and it entered in temporary or permanent
"blocs" with various groups of the bourgeoisie. [49] From the
ideological point of view the anarchists were wrong. With regard to the
facts, they were right, for the Social Democrats did receive indeed
substantial amounts of money from wealthy people, some of them
"bourgeois," some others—being anonymous—may have belonged to all walks
of society (except the poor and the proletarians). Thus according to a
research carried out by David Lane, seven eighths (87.5%) of the Social
Democrats' funds around 1905 through 1906 came from such sources. [50]
The anarchists did not know probably the particulars of these donations,
but they knew that there was no lack of funds in the SDs organizations,
according to the information they received from SD defectors who joined
the anarchists' ranks. They used to say: Nothing of that kind happens to
us anarchists; the bourgeois do not give money to anarchists; had they
done so, they would have required concessions and compromises that would
amount to selling our soul to the devil. [51] The anarchists did not
believe in God, as for the devil, in this case they were wrong for he
had no influence whatsoever on this matter. But they believed that
non-anarchist organizations usually subsist thanks, in part, to
donations (pozhertvovaniia; dobrokhotnye daiania) from the bourgeoisie.
"For us, anarchists, such a method is unthinkable. It would be a
terrible stupidity to go to the bourgeoisie and beg for donations for a
cause whose aim is to liberate the working masses from that same
bourgeoisie"; and as one activist put it:
"If we were to solicit from the bourgeoisie and go to visit these
gentlemen, we would have to wear black suits, hats, and white gloves,
we'll have also to make up our anarchism, which cannot be done without
making up a little our souls. And all that would lead not only to a vast
masquerade party, but also (as we know) to things that it is a shame to
write about." [52]
They believed that such a practice
"would also have a demoralizing influence on ourselves since it would
have forced us to compromise with the bourgeoisie (as it is done by
would-be revolutionary parties), and would have had a corrupting effect
on the masses. In such a case the masses would not be educated in the
anarchist spirit of insubordination and rebellion, but on the contrary,
in a spirit of peaceful agreements with, and concessions to, the
bourgeoisie. In addition, the bourgeoisie is not so stupid as to finance
a truly revolutionary organization, and for that reason will not donate
to an organization like ours. 'Therefore, there is only one way left
open: the way of armed seizure (zakiniat [of funds]). And willy-nilly,
whether we like it or not, we will have to use this method." [53]
Some of the anarchist groups, indeed, adopted this method or "armed
seizure" for the funding of their activity, while some others opposed
it. In revolutionary lingo these seizures were called "expropriations,"
or eksy," for short, a stump word which as a verb meant also "to
confiscate."" Expropriations were linked to terrorism and were practiced
both by groups that endorsed and carried out terrorist acts, as well as
by those who rejected them and used eksy only as a source of funding
their non-violent activity (such as propaganda, printing material, or
mutual aid). The standard definition stipulated that an eks was a
compulsory appropriation of a private property (that is, a robbery)
which belonged to the state (kazennaia ekspropriatisiia), to a private
company or to a private person (chastnaia ekspropriatsiia). [54] In this
respect the eks was an explicit or implicit twisted extension of
Proudhon's well-known saying "La propriete c'est le vol." The eks had
two basic goals: first, it was a source of funds for organizational
purposes; and second, it was a symbolic educational act of great
importance and deep significance intended to instruct the workers how to
relate to the bourgeois and the capitalists. Moreover, it was believed
that the death of comrades killed in expropriations attracted the
workers' sympathy for the anarchist cause. But according to all
evidence, in most cases (with the notable exception of Georgia) this was
hardly so. In fact, in many places the expropriations entangled the
anarchists in serious troubles for three main reasons. First, because of
abuses by members of the groups; second, because many robberies and acts
of brigandage were perpetrated by people who pretended to be anarchists
although they had nothing in common with them; and third, because of the
propaganda exploitation of this situation by the opponents
of anarchism in the government as well as in the other revolutionary
movements. By July 1906 most of the anarchist groups agreed that the
expropriations (which increased in 1905 through 1906) were a subject
that had created a lot of "misunderstandings," an expression which was a
dramatic understatement.
These developments led to a large discussion of questions such as: What
is an expropriation? What are its goals? What are its forms? With regard
to the forms, a distinction was made between three sort of cases: a
"personal (lichnaia) expropriation" signified "the transfer of capital
from one person to another" (perekhod kapitala of odnogo k odnomu zhe)
and had to be rejected; [55] a "mass (massovaia) expropriation" was "the
transfer of capital from one person to a group of people or to a crowd"
and was acceptable in cases of strikes, unemployment, and similar
events; and an "organizational (organizatsionnaia) expropriation" was
"the transfer of capital to a revolutionary group for organizational
purposes"; the latter was the only possibility that should be accepted
by anarchists. This classification did not reflect the opinions of
numerous anarchists who, like Peter Kropotkin, the Khleb i Volia group,
the anarchists-communists and the anarcho-syndicalists, were against all
and any kind of expropriations.
In order to avoid "misunderstandings" and to distance themselves from
ordinary thieves and bandits, one of the devices adopted by the
expropriating groups was to spread leaflets and declarations (in some
cases up to several thousands) each and every time that they made an
expropriation, explaining to the public why it was done and by whom.
[56] A typical declaration of that kind would point out that the
anarchist expropriations are directed only against the state and wealthy
bourgeois, and executed only to serve the needs of the revolution, and
only by way of armed attacks, that is, not by using blackmail
(vymogatel'stvo) against individual bourgeois, or by extortion, or
bargaining (torgashestvo; eks s peretorzhkami). [57] Extortions like
that were done, for instance, in Odessa in 1906 by the "Group
ofAnarchists-Blackmailers" (gruppa anarkhistov-shantazhistov), and by
the groups "Black Raven" (chernyi voron) and "Bomber-Expropriators"
(bombisty ekspropriatory); or in Vilno in 1907 by the group of
"Combination-makers Anarchists" (anarkhisty-kombinary), and one in Baku
that called itself "The Red Hundred" (krasnaia sotnia). The printed
declaration would also state that the anarchists do not consider
expropriations as a tactic for the overthrow of the capitalist regime,
but only as "a technical" means for getting funds for the organization;
and the eksy have nothing in common with anarchist methods proper and
anarchism's ways of struggle against capitalism. Finally, in order to
avoid misunderstanding and false accusations, it was promised that in
the future too the anarchists will issue appropriate declarations each
time that they make expropriations (disregarding the fact that anybody
could issue such a declaration on behalf of anybody else after any
expropriation).
However, it seems that this method of publicly explaining the
anarchists' view on expropriations did not help very much to avoid
"misunderstandings." Toward the end of 1906 and the beginning of 1907,
many groups were complaining about the harmful effects of the
expropriations, and some called them "the disease of Russian anarchism."
This reservation can be deduced also from circumstantial evidence: thus,
reports of several groups in 1907 stated that a positive development had
taken place in their respective towns thanks to the absence of
expropriations during the preceding period of time. The negative
reaction of the general public (which led the anarchists eventually to
abandon the expropriations method) was due to a recurrent organizational
pattern that had indeed an unmistakable negative effect on the anarchist
movement in Russia. [58] As some of the anarchists feared from the
outset, the propaganda for indiscriminate expropriations (bluntly put,
for stealing and robberies) had had extremely harmful results for
several reasons: first, swindlers and ordinary robbers began to pass
themselves off as anarchists; second, every robbery or expropriation was
attributed by the public to the anarchists. And third, these acts led to
great confusion in the public's mind about what was anarchism: some
people could simply not understand what kind of political and
revolutionary movement it represented; others began to nourish feelings
of animosity and enmity toward it. And indeed, under the circumstances,
how could "the masses" understand who were the true anarchists and who
were not? At a certain point, various circles in society and political
parties (on the right as well as on the left) that were opposed to
anarchism, took advantage of this confusion and began to spread rumors
about real or imaginary murders and robberies, and to attribute them to
the anarchists. The SDs and the SRs depicted the anarchists as bandits
and brigands, interested only in expropriations, bombs, and bomb
throwing. [59]
This newly-created situation had also a demoralizing effect on the
anarchist groups. Here and there appeared "specialists-expropriators"
(spetsialistyekspropriatory; profesionarnye ekspropriatory) whose only
task in the group was limited to making expropriations. As a result,
these "specialists" began to choose places "of action" where money could
be taken at the smallest risk or at no risk at all. In so doing they
completely forgot that it was not enough to take money, but above all
that the workers should understand the meaning of this act, and should
not consider it an ordinary robbery. Many members in the anarchist
groups complained that these expropriators did not have a clear idea of
their task, and proceeded to make expropriations not from the well-known
and wealthy bourgeois but from small merchants and little groceries.
Since, during an expropriation, circumstances led sometimes to the
killing of shopkeepers or bystanders, there were numerous cases of
"senseless and idiotic murders" which were harmful to anarchism and
enhanced the animosity of the public. The masses began to think that
anarchists were thieves and nothing more. "Thus, this kind of
expropriations," wrote an anarchist, "brought about a most despicable
result: these comrades felt entitled to put the greatest part of the
money in their own pockets, although it was supposed to have been
expropriated for the group's needs." This method of raising funds
became, then, self-defeating. In practice the group did not gain
anything; in essence it was a "transfer of capital" from one pocket to
another (perekladivanie kapitala iz karmana v karman). [60] This was the
beginning of the end of the expropriations, but while it lasted the
reputation of the anarchists as a serious revolutionary movement was
greatly damaged.
The Russian anarchists' organization debate went largely through three
main stages: from the creation of the first groups in 1903 through
1905—a time of organizing the movement and attempting to implement its
theories; from 1905 to 1907, a period of trial and error; and third from
1908 to 1914, the period of crystallization and stabilization. During
the first stage the Russian anarchists tried to establish a framework
that would be at one and the same time in accordance with the essence of
their ideology and a tool for practical activity based on a rejection of
authority. The second stage, 1905 through 1907, provided the test of
events in two main respects: it illustrated the remoteness and
inapplicability of the aspiration to create in the present cells that
will be a prefiguration of the desired future society. On the other hand
the increase of expropriations stirred an internal debate that led
eventually to the rejection of this type of fundraising. The heyday of
the expropriations coincided with the web and flow of the 1905
Revolution and its aftermath. [61] Thereafter the eksy almost ceased and
disappeared from the revolutionary chronicle of events and the police
reports. Some anarchists continued to consider them as a just and
justified necessity, but most of the groups held that they were a
negative offshoot of the revolutionary action. Once the expropriations
were gone, in the third stage the anarchist groups underwent a process
of stabilization, finding solutions to the problems of organization
according to the basic anarchist rules and principles while in the field
of revolutionary tactics they had to grapple with another issue: the use
or rejection of terrorism.
Terrorism is beyond the scope of this essay because it does not concern
the question whether or how to organize the movement, but what kind of
methods (such as strikes, street manifestations, or the use of violence)
should be used to carry out the political struggle. [62] Suffice it to
note that in this respect, too, some anarchists approved the use of
terror, while some rejected it, and the position of the latter was well
rendered by Peter Kropotkin's lapidary saying: "There are some idiots in
our movement who seem to believe that they can change the course of
history with a kilogram of dynamite." But there were divergent opinions
also among those who favored terrorism as to the reasons, forms, and
goals of its use. Inspired by the terrorist legacy of the Narodnaia
Volia and by the French practice of "propagande par le fait" (propaganda
dela; parlefetizm: par-le-faitisme), the Russian anarchists rejected the
notion of terrorist actions directed by a commanding center
(tsentralizovannyi terror) and adopted the form of a "decentralized"
(detsentralizovannyi terror), dispersed (rassypchatyi) and locally
instigated (razlitoi terror). But the big divergences within the
pro-terror anarchists was that some of them held that it must be clearly
directed against the bourgeoisie or against governmental institutions or
personnel (kazennyi terror), and for that reason it was called
"motivated terror" (motivnyi terror), whereas others assumed that all
terror was justified, that there was no need for a specific motive to
perform it (bezmotivnyi terror), and on that account they were called
"bezmotivniki." What was a non-motivated terror? It was "an act directed
against random and unknown persons from whom the workers did not have
any specific demands, or direct conflict relations." Such were, for
instance, the throwing of bombs in restaurants, coffee-houses, theatres,
and other bourgeois public gathering places. "By throwing a bomb in a
coffee-house or a restaurant..., first, we take revenge against the
entire bourgeoisie as a class in the name of the other class—the
have-nots (obezdolennye); second...such an act shows the workers who is
guilty for the existence of the present regime, and teaches them how to
fight it."" [63] Among the most notorious applications of this "fighting
philosophy" were the "attack" on Hotel Bristol in Warsaw in November
1905, and the one on café Libman in Odessa in December 1905 by the
bezmotivniki of the group Chernoe Znamia.
The expropriations and the terror completed the list of extreme
manifestations of the anarchist groups. By the end of 1907 most of them
understood the negative effects of these practices, abandoned them, and
reverted to the search of the best forms of organization for
non-organization. They did that, as in the past, along two lines of
thought: a theoretical justification according to the spirit and
doctrine of anarchism; and the lessons that could be drawn from the
practical action and experience accumulated by the groups.
Theoretically, from the outset, the anarchist conception of the
organization contained three main ideological assumptions. First, it
represented a rejection of externally imposed norms and rules, and at
the same time it assumed an internalization of (anarchist) norms and
rules to such a degree as to make unnecessary any external constraints.
Second, this outlook was an idealization of "natural man" as opposed to
"civilized man" (or "political man"), and assumed at the same time the
possibility to create "new men" and "new women" within the existing
capitalist society. Third, it assumed the possibility to create "cells
of the future society," and this meant that their organization would
represent the beginning of "natural order" as opposed to the existing
"artificial order" of capitalism and exploitation.
The underlying implication of the last two assumptions—creation of
"natural man" and of cells of the "natural order"—was that immediate
political success was at best secondary. The anarchists acted as if
carrying on the struggle was more important than achieving victory here
and now, and that success was important but in order to achieve victory
they should not abandon the raison d'etre of life, and pervert the very
nature of the eventual victory. The corollary of this stance was, in a
way, that the role of the organization in the revolution was secondary,
since the revolution would anyway be a spontaneous one, and it would be
a revolution of the masses and not of a clique of conspirators. In
practice the tension between these kinds of assumptions and the
day-to-day organizational activity among the workers led to several
interesting theoretical and practical results. First, it entailed an
implicit rejection (notwithstanding explicit declarations to the
contrary) of the reference to the future society in matters of present
organization, as being too remote from the realities of everyday
activity. Second, the emergence of a clear distinction between
spontaneity, which the anarchists cultivated, and elemental drives or
elementalness (stikhiinost'), which they viewed with suspicion. Their
belief in the spontaneity of the members and of the masses, and in the
spontaneous revolution from below, was strengthened by the specific
forms of the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution. As for stikhiinost' devoid
of class and anarchist consciousness, they considered it as a major
danger which might lead to missing the right moment for the overthrow of
the existing social and economic order. Although this view appears very
un-Bakuninist, for these anarchists the most important lesson in this
respect was the attitude of the masses after the October Manifesto in
1905. Amid the general euphoria, the excitement of the public, and the
pogroms of the 17 to 25 October in Kiev and Odessa, the anarchists
claimed that the tsar's Manifesto was a sham, and that this was not the
end of the revolution. But the masses refused to follow them and they
found themselves isolated. Paradoxically, this outcome led many of them
to conclude that they needed a strong organization, and that they should
not rely on stikhiinost'. Nonetheless, as reaction set in, the
anarchists refused to be tamed. While the SDs and the SRs were on the
defensive and generally quiescent, the anarchists fought back,
reinforced by SD and SR defectors. The anarchist movement continued to
grow following the mass revolutionary acts of 1905. Okhrana reports of
that time noted that after the December uprisings the anarchists were
catapulted into a much more influential position in the left.
The final result came around 1907, after the debate on the
expropriations. It represented the stabilization of a framework which
was shaped at one and the same time according to the essence of
anarchist ideas, and as a tool for practical activity. The anarchist
ideas favored small, homogeneous, and autonomous groups, and the
rejection of authority and centralization. The single most important
event that strengthened their belief in the basic perniciousness of
centralization and confirmed their views on the advantages of carrying
on activity through autonomous groups was the exposure in 1908 of Azef,
the head of the Combat Organization of the SRs, as a police tool: it was
a great blow for the Socialist Revolutionary Party, while the anarchists
found in it a vindication of their organizational views, due to the fact
that their groups withstood relatively well the period of repression,
demoralization, and "restoration of authority" that came in the wake of
the 1905 revolution. With these conceptions and this mode of
organization the Russian anarchists confronted the momentous events that
soon thereafter befell the peoples of the Russian empire—the Great War
and 1917.
University and a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and
Humanities. The most recent of his publications include Russia before
the "Radiant Future." Essays in Modern History, Culture, and Society
(forthcoming); "The Soslovie (Estate) Paradigm. Reflections on Some Open
Questions", Cahiers du monde russe 49, 4 (2008): 681-699; "Questions of
Comparability: Russian Serfdom and American Slavery," in Explorations in
Comparative History, ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar (2009): 92-112; and "Franco
Venturi's Russia," Kritika. Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History
11,1 (2010): 77-105 (mconfino@post.tau.ac.i1).
[1] Tachanka was a light peasant cart, used to carry a machine gun. See
Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1967), 209-25; Paul Avrich, "Nestor Makhno: The Man and the
Myth," in Anarchist Portraits (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1988), 111-24; Peter Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement
(1918-1921) (Detroit and Chicago: Black & Red and Solidarity, 1974; the
Russian original was published in Berlin in 1923); Volin [V.M.
Eikhenbaumi, The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921 (New York: Free Life
Editions, 1974), 667-710; Frank E. Sysyn, "Nestor Makhno and the
Ukrainian Revolution," in Taras Hunczak, ed., The Ukraine 1917-1921: A
Study in Revolution (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard Ukrainian Research
Institute, 1977), 271-304; and for a very critical evaluation of
Makhno's role, see Felix Schnell, "Tear Them Apart...And Be Done With
It!" The Ataman-Leadership of Nestor Makhno as a Culture of Violence."
Ab Imperio 3 (2008): 195-221.
[2] See Jean Maitron, Histoire du mouvement anarchiste en France
(1880-1914) (Paris: Societe Universitaire d'Editions et de Librairie,
1955).
[3] Peter Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist, with a preface by
George Brandes, 2 vols. (London: Smith, Elder, 1899).
[4] [P Kropotkinl, Khleb i volia 18 (June 1905): 4; Listki Khleb i volia
2 (14 November 1906): 4, 5.
[5] See Cesar M. Lorenzo, Les anarchistes espagnols et le pouvoir,
1868-1969 (Paris: Seuil, 1969); Jean Becarud and Gilles Lapouge,
Anarchistes d'Espagne (Paris: Andre Balland, 1970); Iaacov Oved, El
anarquismo y el movimiento obrero en Argentina (Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno,
1978); Temma Kaplan, Anarchists of Andalusia, 1868-1903 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1977); Murray Bookchin, The Spanish
Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868-1936 (New York: AK Press, 1977);
Armando Borghi, Mezzo secolo di anarchia (1898-1945) (Naples: Edizioni
scientifiche italiane, 1954); Alessandro Galante Garrone, I Radicali in
Italia: 1849-1925 (Milan: Garzanti, 1978); Pier Carlo Masini, Storia
degli anarchici italiani. Da Bakunin a Malatesta (18621892) (Milan:
Rizzoli, 1981); Liliano Faenza, ed., Anarchismo e Socialismo in Italia:
1872-1892 (Rome: Editori riuniti, 1974); Eva Civolani, LAnarchismo dopo
la Comune: I casi italiano e spagnolo (Milan: Angeli, 1981); Richard D.
Sonn, Anarchism and Cultural Politics in Fin de Siecle France (Lincoln
and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989); Georgi Khadjiev,
Natsionalnoto osvobozhdenie i bezvlastniyat fideraliz"m (National
Liberation and Anarchist Federalism) (Sofia: ARTIZDAT-5, 1992); D.
Daskalov, Anarkhizm"t v B"lgaria (The Anarchist Movement in Bulgaria)
(Sofia: no publisher,1995).
[6] For a survey of the various groups of Russian anarchists see Paul
Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, 40-58, and N. Rogdaev1N.I. "Razlichnye
techeniia v russkom anarkhizme," Burevestnik 8 (November 1907): 9-11. I
have not discussed here the views of the few Russian
anarchists-individualists who were staunchly opposed to any kind of
organization, and who followed Hynan Croiset's notorious motto: "Me, me,
me...and then the others!"
[7] Most of these figures were found in scattered sources, dealing with
various aspects of this subject. See Avrich, The Russian Anarchists;
James Joll, The Anarchists (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1964);
Maureen Perrie, "The Social Composition and Structure of the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party before 1917," Soviet Studies 24, 2 (1972):
223-50; Christopher Rice, Russian Workers and the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party through the Revolution of 1905-07 (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1988); David Lane, The Roots of Russian
Communism: A Social and Historical Study of Russian Social Democracy,
1898-1907 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1969); Robert J. Brym, The Jewish
Intelligentsia and Russian Marxism: A Sociological Study of Intellectual
Radicalism and Ideological Divergence (London: Macmillan, 1978); Henry
J. Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1972); Jonathan Frankel, Prophecy and Politics. Socialism,
Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981); Richard Pipes, Social Democracy and the St.
Petersburg Labor Movement, 1885-1897 (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1963); Leopold H. Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins
of Bolshevism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966); Leonard Schapiro, The
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (London: Methuen, 1960); R.
Abramovich, "The Jewish Socialist Movement in Russia and Poland
(1879-1919), in The Jewish People — Past and Present, vol. 2, (New York:
1949); J.L.H. Keep, The Rise of Social Democracy in Russia (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1963).
[8] On the "Azef Affair" see Vladimir Burtsev, Bor'ba za svobodnuiu
Rossiu. Mai vospominaniia ( 1882-1922) (The Struggle for a Free Russia.
Reminiscences, 1882-1922) (Berlin: Gamaiun, 1923); V.K. Agafonov,
Zagranichnaia Okhranka (The Okhrana Abroad) (Petrograd: Kniga, 1923);
Nurit Schleifman, Undercover Agents in the Russian Revolutionary
Movement. The SR Party, 1902-1914 (Oxford: MacMillan, 1988).
[9] The main sources used in this examination are anarchist periodicals
printed in Russia or abroad, published and unpublished correspondence
and writings of anarchist theoreticians (Bakunin, Kropotkin, Malatesta,
Novomirskii, Gogelia) and of local activists, Russian and Western
European (mostly French) police reports that quote verbatim utterances
and speeches of Russian anarchists, and relevant sections of secondary
works on Russian anarchism. The unpublished material used is located in
the archives of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris; the
Archives Nationales, Serie F 7 (Police generale), Paris; Okhrana
Archives at the Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace,
Stanford; the International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam. The
periodicals include: Anarkhist. Organ russkikh anarkhistov-kommunistov,
1907-09 (Geneva and Paris); Der Arbayter Fraynd, 1885-1932 (London); Bez
rulia, 1908 (Paris); Buntar" Organ russkikh anarkhistov-kommunistov,
1906-09 (Geneva); Buntovshchik, 1909 (St. Petersburg); Burevestnik.
Organ russkikh anarkhistov-kommunistov, 1908-1910 (Paris); Chernoe
znamia, 1905 (Geneva); Fraye Arbayter Stimme, 1890-1939 (New York);
Listki Khleb i volia. Organ kommunistov-anarkhistov, 1906-07 (London);
Listok gruppy Beznachalie, 1905 (Paris); Listok rabochei voli, 1901
(Kiev); Nabat. Organ russkikh anarkhistov-kommunistov, 1914-1915
(Paris); Novyi mir, 1905 (Paris); Rabochee znamia. Organ russkikh
anarkhistov-kommunistov, 1915-16 (Lausanne, Geneva); Rabochi put" Organ
russkikh anarkho-sindikalistov, 1923 (Berlin); Vol rabochei, 1906
(Odessa); Khleb i volia. Organ gruppy anarkhistov-kommunistov "Khleb i
volia," 1903-1905 (Geneva).
[10] Several articles (most of them unsigned) in the anarchist
periodicals examine more specifically this question: see, for instance
[Peter Kropotkin], "Organizatsiia iii vol'noe soglashenie," Khleb i
volia 18 (June 1905): 1-5; "Revoliutsionnaia organizatsiia," Burevestnik
2 (20 August 1906): 14-16; ibid., "Ob organizatsii" 3 (30 September
1906): 2-5; Burevestnik 3 (30 September 1906): 1-2; "Vopros ob
organizatsii," Listki Khleb i volia 1 (30 October 1906): 8; "013
organizatsii," Listki Khleb i volia 5 (28 December 1906): 2-5; "K
voprosam prakticheskoi raboty," Buntar' 1 (October 1908): 6-13; V.V.
"Voprosy organizatsii," Buntar' 2-3 (June-July 1908): 19-23; idem,
"Otvet redaktsii," 24-25; K. Orgeiani [Georg' Gogelia],
"Organizatsionnyi print-sip revoliutsionnago sindikalizma i anarkhizm,"
Burevestnik 14 (January 1909): 2-7; "Itogi russkoi revoliutsii — k
voprosu ob organizatsii," Nabat 1 (July 1914): 16-19. See also Rudolf
Rocker, Anarchismus and Organisation (Berlin: Libertad, 1978); and
Malatesta's polemic with anarchists-individualists who opposed any kind
of organization: "Organizzatori e antiorganizzatori," L'agitazione
(Ancona) 13 (4 June 1897); "Necessity dell'organizzazione," L'agitazione
(Ancona) 14 (11 June 1897); a similar position was adopted by the French
anarchist Jean Grave, Quarante ans de propagande anarchiste (Paris:
Flammarion, 1973): 25; see also Luigi Fabbri, Malatesta. L'uomo e it
pensiero (Naples: Edizioni RL, 1951), chap. 15 ("Organizzazione
anarchica"): 197-210, and Gino Cerrito, 11 mot° della organizzazione
anarchica (Naples: Edizioni RL, 1973).
[11] Khleb i volia 12-13 (October-November 1904): 2. In addition to
"socialistes d'Etat," the French anarchists used to the same effect
"socialistes gouvernementalistes" or "socialistes autoritaires" (see Les
Temps nouveaux, IV, 4, [21-27 May 1898]: 3; L'Insurge, 2 [1985].)
[12] Khleb i volia 18 (June 1905): 1-5.
[13] Anarkhist 1 (10 October): 6.
[14] Khleb i volia 6 (January 1904): 2; Burevestnik 3 (30 September
1906): 2.
[15] Burevestnik 15 (March 1909): 13.
[16] Khleb i volia 18 (June 1905): 3; Khleb i volia 6 (January 1904): 2.
[17] Burevestnik 15 (March 1909): 13.
[18] S-sky, "K teorii terrora," Buntar' 4 (January 1909): 7.
[19] Vetrov, "Otnoshenie kom.-anar. k sushchestvuiushchim v Rossii
politicheskim partiiam," Listki Khleb i volia 6 (January 1907): 3-4.
[20] Khleb i volia 6 (January 1904): 2; see also "Doloi
programma-minimum," Khleb i volia 4 (November 1903): 6, and "Pochemu u
nas net programmy-minimum?" Khleb i volia 11 (September 1904): 1-3.
[21] Khleb i Volia 8 (March 1904): 2.
[22] Peter Kropotkin, "Sotsializm i sotsial-demokratiia," Burevestnik 13
(October 1908): 6-8.
[23] On the origins of the debate between Marxists and anarchists see
Paul Thomas, Karl Marx and the Anarchists (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1980); and David Miller, Anarchism (London: J.M. Dent, 1984).
[24] Leszek Kolakowski, "For Brotherhood or for Destruction," The Times
Literary Supplement, 4 January 1985 (a book review of David Miller's
Anarchism). (I checked carefully the original issue of the TLS, and
found that "hilarity" is exactly the word used by Kolakowski.)
[25] Anarkhist 1 (10 October 1907): 32; in this case this referred to
the Bund and "the adepts of Iskra", that is the Bolsheviks, in Cherkasy
(Kiev guberniia).
[26] Eric J. Hobsbawm, "Bolshevism and the Anarchists," in
Revolutionaries. Contemporary Essays (New York: New American Library,):
57, 58; ibid. "Bolchevisme et anarchisme", Politique aujourd'hui,
(September-October 1970): 70.
[27] Burevestnik 15 (March 1909): 13.
[28] Raevskii, "Vserossiiskii rabochii s"ezd i sotsial demokratiia,"
Burevestnik 6-7 (September-October 1907): 6.
[29] See Tobias, The Jewish Bund, 331-32.
[30] Anarkhist 1 (10 October 1907): 18; Burevestnik 15 (March 1909): 13;
Khleb i volia 10 (July 1904): 2; Listki khleb i volia 1 (30 October
1906): 11.
[31] Raevskii, "Vserossiiskii rabochii s"ezd," Burevestnik 6-7
(September-October 1907): 6.
[32] Burevestnik 14 (January 1909): 3.
[33] See Fernand Pelloutier, "Uanarchisme et les syndicats ouvriers,"
Les Temps nouveaux 2-8 November 1895.
[34] Michel Bakounine (1869), OEuvres 4 (Paris: Stock, 1910): 135.
[35] On the relationship between members of political parties in terms
of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft see R. Heberle, "Ferdinand Tunnies'
Contribution to the Sociology of Political Parties," American Journal of
Sociology 61 (1955-56): 213; Maurice Duverger, Les partis politiques
(Paris: Armand Colin, 1954): 149-53.
[36] In this "little preliminary conference," as Marie Goldsmith wrote
later, participated Ivan Knizhnik-Vetrov, Alexander Schapiro, Marie
Goldsmith, Vladimir Zabrezhnev (Fedorov) and his spouse, Peter Kropotkin
and his wife, Sof'ia Grigor'evna, Daniil Novomirskii (Iankel
Kirillovski0, 0. Kushnir (Kushniaroft), and L. F. Nagel'; see Peter
Kropotkin, ed., Russkaia revoliutsiia i anarkhizm. Doklady, chitannye na
s"ezde kommunistov-anarkhistov v oktiabre 1906 g. (London, 1907); M.
Korn [Marie Goldmsith], "K godovshchine smerti P.A. Kropotkina," Galas
truzhenika 17 (March 1926): 41; I. Knizhnik [I. Vetrov], "Vospominaniia
o P.A. Kropotkine i ob odnoi anarkhistkoi emigrantskoi gruppe.
(Stranitsa iz istorii nashego revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia), Krasnaia
letopis'4 (1922): 34.
[37] "Rezoliutsii s"ezda," Listki Khleb i volia 1 (30 October 1906):
1-2, 3-6.
[38] The International Anarchist Congress, Amsterdam 1907,
http://www.anarkismo.netnewswire .php?story_id=6632, p. 12-3 (visited
August 14, 2009); see also N. Rogdaev [N.I. Internatsional'nyi kongress
anarkhistov v Amsterdame, n.p., n.d. [but Paris, 1907]. Nikolai Muzil'
was one of the Russian delegates to the Congress in Amsterdam; the
others were Vladimir Zabrezhnev and, according to the minutes of the
Congress in French, Emilie Wetkoff (probably: "Vetrov," the wife of Ivan
Vetrov), and two names which I was unable to identify: Sophie Wodneff,
and Vladneff, which may have been occasional pseudonyms and not the real
names of the persons.
[39] Liskti Khleb i volia 5 (28 December 1906): 3-4; see also
Burevestnik3 (30 September 1906): 1; ibid., 14 (January 1909): 2.
[40] Thus, in Pereslav (Poltava guberniia) the beginning of the
anarchist activity in July 1907 was initiated with two separate skhodki,
one of intellectuals (intelligentskaia) and another of workers and
peasants (Anarkhist I [10 October 19071: 34).
[41] Buntar 1 (December 1906): 26.
[42] See Rudolf Rocker, The London Years (London: Robert Anscombe & Co.,
1956); William J. Fishman, East End Jewish Radicals, 1875-1914 (London:
Duckworth, 1975); see also Hermia Oliver, The International Anarchist
Movement in Late Victorian London (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983);
Amedeo Bertolo, ed., L'anarchico e l'ebreo. Storia di un incontro
(Milan: Eleuthera, 2001).
[43] An interesting exception to this rule in the early twentieth
century was the Macedonian-Bulgarian Anarchist Federation, due partly to
the fact that in those years the Macedonians considered themselves
Bulgarians, and maybe also they joined forces for tactical reasons,
because they brought a long experience of armed resistance and partisan
warfare.
[44] Peter Kropotkin to Marie Goldsmith, 11 May 1897 in Michael Confino,
Anarchistes en exit. Correspondance inedite de Pierre Kropotkine a Marie
Goldsmith, 1897-1917 (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Slaves, 1995): 80.
[45] Peter Kropotkin to Marie Goldsmith, 22 February 1909, Confino,
Anarchistes en exil, 355.
[46] See Khleb i volia 12-13 (October-November 1904): 2; see also the
letter of Peter Kropotkin to Marie Goldsmith, 22 February 1909,
Anarchistes en exit, 355, and for an examination of the anarchists'
positions toward the secret police activity see Michael Confino, "Pierre
Kropotkine et les agents de l'Okhrana," Cahiers du monde russe et
sovietique 24, 1-2 (January-June 1983): 108-10.
[47] Burevestnik 1 (20 July 1906): 9-10.
[48] Anarkhist 1 (10 October 1907): 14-15.
[49] Ibid.
[50] See Lane, Roots of Russian Communism,105-9;
[51] Buntar'2-3 (June-July 1908): 24-5.
[52] Anarkhist 1 (10 October 1907): 14.
[53] Burevestnik 1 (20 July 1906): 9.
[54] Anarkhist 1 (10 October 1907): 15, 16.
[55] Burevestnik 1 (20 July 1906): 10.
[56] One of the reasons of this measure was because there were cases of
extortion made by Social Democrats who pretended to be anarchists.
[57] V.V. "Voprosy organizatsii," Buntar' 2-3 (June-July 1908): 19.
[58] Buntar'1 (1 December 1906): 25.
[59] Ibid.
[60] Burevestnik 1 (20 July 1906): 10.
[61] Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, 2 volumes (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1992).
[62] On terrorism in Russia see Alexandre Spiridovitch, Histoire du
terrorisme russe, 1886-1917) (Paris: Payot, 1930); O.V. Budnitskii,
Istoriia terrorizma v Rossii (History of Terrorism in Russia) (Rostov on
the Don: Phoenix, 1996); Anna Geifman, Thou Shall Kill. Revolutionary
Terror in Russia, 1894-1917 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1993); see also Martin A. Miller, "The Intellectual Origins of Modern
Terrorism in Europe," and Philip Pomper, "Russian Revolutionary
Terrorism," in Martha Crenshaw, ed., Terrorism in Context (Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995): 27-62 and 63-101
respectively.
[63] Burevestnik 1 (20 June 1906): 2.