Anarchism
is the political belief that society should have no government, laws,
police, or other authority, but should be a free association of all
its members. William Godwin was an important
anarchist philosopher in Britain during the late 18th century. He
believed that the "euthanasia of government" would be achieved
through "individual moral reformation".
The
Russian writer Alexander Herzen was greatly
influenced by the anarchist-socialism of Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon. Forced into exile, Herzen established the Free Russian
Press in London
that published a series of journals including The
Polar Star, Voices from Russia
and The Bell.
In The
Bell Herzen predicted that because of its backward economy,
socialism would be introduced into Russia before any other European
country. "What can be accomplished only by a series of cataclysms
in the West can develop in Russia out of existing conditions."
Herzen
believed that the peasants in Russia could become a revolutionary
force and after the overthrow of the nobility would create a socialist
society. This included the vision of peasants living in small village
communes where the land was periodically redistributed among individual
households along egalitarian lines.
Another
writer influenced by anarchist thought was Peter
Lavrov. Like Alexander Herzen Lavrov
was exiled from Russia and while living in Europe explained his political
views in the newspaper, Vpered!
(Forwards!). Lavrov argued that progress came about from the deliberate
action of "critically thinking individuals". The role of
intellectuals was to imbue the people with the knowledge that would
help them to attain "the moral ideal of socialism".
In
Russia the most significant Anarchist was Michael
Bakunin. In 1869 he co-wrote Catechism of a Revolutionist
with Sergi Nechayev. It included the
famous passage: "The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no
private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even
a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one
thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely
by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order
and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners,
conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy
and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it."
In
1873 Michael Bakunin published
his major work, Statism and Anarchy.
In the book Bakunin advocated the abolition of hereditary property,
equality for women and free education for all children. He also argued
for the transfer of land to agricultural communities and factories
to labour associations.
Another
anarchist in Russia, Peter Kropotkin,
was arrested and imprisoned in 1874. Two years later he escaped and
fled to Switzerland. His radical socialist
views made him unwelcome in Switzerland and in 1881 he moved to France
where he became a member of the International Working Men's Association
(the First International).
In 1883 Peter
Kropotkin
was arrested and imprisoned by the French authorities. While in prison
Kropotkin's ideas on anarchism were
published. Released in 1886 Kropotkin moved to England where he wrote
In Russian and French Prisons (1887). He was wrote a series of
articles attacking the ideas of Charles Darwin.
Kropotkin argued that it was cooperation rather than struggle that
accounted for the evolution of man and human intelligence.
The publication of Kropokin's books, Conquest
of Bread (1892), Memoirs of a
Revolutionist (1899), Fields,
Factories and Workshops (1901), Mutual
Aid (1902) and The Great French
Revolution (1909) turned him into a world known political
figure.
Another
important anarchist, Nestor Makhno, emerged
during the Russian Revolution. When the Central
Powers occupied the Ukraine in 1918 he was chosen by Vladimir
Lenin to lead the revolutionary army in the area. Over the next
few years he fought against the Austro-Hungarian
Army, the German Army and the White
Army.
During
the Civil War Makhno played an important
role in the defeat of General Anton Denikin
in 1919 and General Peter Wrangel in
1920.
Makhno's
decision to set up an Anarchist society
in the Ukraine resulted in him being attacked by the Red
Army. In August, 1921, Nestor Makhno
was forced to leave Russia.
After
the Russian Revolution the United States
government decided to deport Emma Goldman
to Russia from the United States. As an anarchist, Goldman was repelled
by the Bolshevik dictatorship and
after marrying a Welsh miner she managed to obtain British citizenship.
Her books, My Disillusionment in Russia
(1923) and My Further Disillusionment in
Russia (1924) helped to turn a large number of socialists
against the Bolshevik government.
The
Russian anarchist, Vsevolod
Volin, wrote a libertarian history of the Russian
Revolution, The Unknown Revolution,
that was published in French in 1947 and English in 1954.
(1) Alexander
Herzen, The Bell (1865)
Social
progress is possible only under complete republican freedom, under
full democratic equality. A republic that would not lead to Socialism
seems an absurdity to us - a transitional stage regarding itself as
the goal. On the other hand, Socialism which might try to dispense
with political freedom would rapidly degenerate into an autocratic
Communism.
(2)
Mikhail Bakunin
and Sergi Nechayev,
Catechism of a Revolutionist (1869)
The
Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs,
sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire
being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution.
Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every
link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with
the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He
is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose
- to destroy it.
He
despises public opinion. He hates and despises the social morality
of his time, its motives and manifestations. Everything which promotes
the success of the revolution is moral, everything which hinders it
is immoral. The nature of the true revolutionist excludes all romanticism,
all tenderness, all ecstasy, all love.
(3)
Mikhail Bakunin, Marxism, Freedom
and the State (1871)
I am a passionate seeker after Truth and a not less passionate enemy
of the malignant fictions used by the "Party of Order",
the official representatives of all turpitudes, religious, metaphysical,
political, judicial, economic, and social, present and past, to brutalise
and enslave the world; I am a fanatical lover of Liberty; considering
it as the only medium in which can develop intelligence, dignity,
and the happiness of man; not official "Liberty", licensed,
measured and regulated by the State, a falsehood representing the
privileges of a few resting on the slavery of everybody else; not
the individual liberty, selfish, mean, and fictitious advanced by
the school of Rousseau and all other schools of bourgeois Liberalism,
which considers the rights of the individual as limited by the rights
of the State, and therefore necessarily results in the reduction of
the rights of the individual to zero.
No, I mean
the only liberty which is truly worthy of the name, the liberty which
consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual
and moral powers which are to be found as faculties latent in everybody,
the liberty which recognises no other restrictions than those which
are traced for us by the laws of our own nature; so that properly
speaking there are no restrictions, since these laws are not imposed
on us by some outside legislator, beside us or above us; they are
immanent in us, inherent, constituting the very basis of our being,
material as well as intellectual and moral; instead, therefore, of
finding them a limit, we must consider them as the real conditions
and effective reason for our liberty.
(4)
Peter Lavrov, To
the Russian Revolutionary Youth (1874)
History
has shown us, and psychology proves, that the possession of great
power corrupts the best people, and that even the ablest leaders,
who meant to benefit the people by decree, failed. Every dictatorship
must surround itself by compulsory means of defence which must serve
as obedient tools in its hands. Every dictatorship is called upon
to suppress not only its reactionary opponents but also those who
disagree with its methods and actions. Whenever a dictatorship succeeded
in establishing itself it had to spend more time and effort in retaining
its power and defending it against its rivals than upon the realization
of its programme, with the aid of that power. The abolition of dictatorship
assumed by a party can only be dreamed about before the usurpation
takes place. In the struggle of parties for power, in the class of
open or concealed ambitions, every moment furnishes an added reason
and necessity for maintaining the dictatorship, creates a new excuse
for not relinquishing it. A dictatorship can be wrested from the dictators
only by a new revolution.
(5)
Peter Lavrov, Vpered!
(1875)
Falsehood
can never be the means for spreading truth. Exploitation or the authoritarian
rule of the individual can never be the means for the realization
of justice. Triumph over idle pleasure cannot be attained by the forcible
seizure of unearned wealth, or the transfer of the opportunity for
enjoyment from one individual to another. People who assert that the
end justifies the means should keep in mind the limitation of their
rule by the rather simple truism; except those means which undermine
the goal itself.
(6)
Victor Serge, Year One of
the Revolution (1930)
An Anarchist schoolmaster and former political prisoner,
named Nestor Makhno, opened up guerrilla warfare at Gulai-Polye, with
fifteen men at his side; these attacked German sentries to obtain
weapons. Later on, Makhno was to form whole armies. The Germans repressed
these movements with the utmost vigour, executing prisoners en masse
and burning down villages; but it was all too much for them.
(7)
Emma Goldman and Alexander
Berkman often considered returning to Russia.
Russian hearts dwelt more in Russia than in the country they were
enriching by their labour, which nevertheless scorned them as "foreigners."
All through the years we had been close to the pulse of Russia, close
to her spirit and her superhuman struggle for liberation. But our
lives were rooted in our adopted land. We had learned to love her
physical grandeur and her beauty and to admire the men and women who
were fighting for freedom, the Americans of the best calibre. I felt
myself one of them, an American in the truest sense, spiritually rather
than by the grace of a mere scrap of paper.
(8)
Emma Goldman, Living My Life (1931)
The hated Romanovs were at last hurled from their throne, the
Tsar and his cohorts shorn of power. It was not the result of a political
coup d'‚tat; the great achievement was accomplished by the rebellion
of the entire people. Only yesterday inarticulate, crushed as they
had been for centuries, under the heel of a ruthless absolutism, insulted
and degraded, the Russian masses had risen to demand their heritage
and to proclaim to the whole world that autocracy and tyranny were
for ever at an end in their country. The glorious tidings were the
first sign of life in the vast European cemetery of war and destruction.
They inspired all liberty-loving people with new hope and enthusiasm,
yet no one felt the spirit of the Revolution as did the natives of
Russia scattered all over the globe. They saw their beloved Matushka
Rossiya now extend to them the promise of manhood and aspiration.
Russia was free; yet not truly so. Political independence was but
the first step on the road to the new life. Of what use are "rights,"
I thought, if the economic conditions remain unchanged. I had known
the blessings of democracy too long to have faith in political scene-shifting.
Far more abiding was my faith in the people themselves, in the Russian
masses now awakened to the consciousness of their power and to the
realization of their opportunities. The imprisoned and exiled martyrs
who had struggled to free Russia were now being resurrected, and some
of their dreams realized. They were returning from the icy wastes
of Siberia, from dungeons and banishment. They were coming back to
unite with the people and to help them build a new Russia, economically
and socially.
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