Alexandre Skirda (6 March 1942,Houdan – 23 December 2020, Paris) was a Frenchanarchist. His mother wasUkrainian and his father wasRussian. He was a historian and a translator, specializing in theRussian anarchist revolutionary movement. His writing is inFrench.[1]
Skirda became ananarchist as a teenager, through the influence of his friendLouis Louvet, the publisher of the periodicalContre-courant [fr] and distributor of texts published byTemps nouveaux [fr]. Through Louvet, Skirda was exposed toBakunin,Kropotkin,Reclus and other classical anarchists.[2]
He founded theGroupe d’Etudes et Action Anarchiste [fr] (Anarchist Studies and Action Group) with anarchist historianRoland Biard [fr] when they were both 19. He was active in demonstrating againstFrance's war in Algeria.[3]
From 1961, he studied at theSorbonne, being taught History by the StalinistJean Bruhat [fr], philosophy byJean-Francois Lyotard (then a member of thelibertarian communistSocialisme ou Barbarie group withCornelius Castoriadis), industrial society byRaymond Aron and sociology byGeorges Gurvitch.(Of these, he was personally close to Lyotard and inspired by Gurvitch.)[2] He worked during his student years, doing odd jobs in retail and other sectors, including as the main family breadwinner once his father died. After graduating with a Literature degree, in 1968 he became a civil servant, before participating in the revolutionary events ofMay 68 in Paris, including in student-worker action committees that synchronised student activism with factory occupations.[4]
He joined theUnion of Anarcho-Communist Groups (UGAC) and helped found theLibertarian Communist Movement (MCL). He left the MCL to join theRevolutionary Anarchist Organization (ORA), in which he used thepseudonymBrevan.[5]
Skirda followed theplatformist tendency inanarchism, which posits the need for strong organisation.[6]
From the 1970s, he became increasingly involved in collecting and writing thehistory of anarchism, and from the 1980s he was a second-hand book dealer.[5]
French sociologistRené Lourau said in 1982 that "A solitary researcher, outside of an institution, Skirda has already given us, concerning the dark continent of the modern revolutionary movement (the USSR), some of the most striking studies and translations, although completely outside the 'gulagist' current".[7] Skirda's work focused on the role ofRussian andUkrainian anarchists in the period of the1917 Russian Revolution and its aftermath, and in particular on theMakhnovtchina (theRevolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine) andKrondstadt.
French historianSylvain Boulouque [fr] called him a "weekend historian", saying that "Over the years [Skirda] made regular additions to his output, reprinted by one of his most loyal publishers, Éditions de Paris-Max Chaleil. In the 1970s,Soviet archives were accessible only to a handful of figures vetted by the Soviet party-state. Skirda waspersona non grata in such circles. And so it was from Paris that he painstakingly assembled documentation from exiled activists and translated available materials from the Russian."[5]
HisNestor Makhno — Anarchy’s Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921, first published in French in 1982 followed by three more editions and English publication byAK Press in 2005, described the creation of free municipalities which aimed to establish a stateless society, and how these were crushed by the Bolshevik State.[7][8][9] HisKronstadt 1921: Free Soviets Against Party Dictatorship told the story of the repression of the Kronstadt uprising by the Bolsheviks, includingLeon Trotsky. He translated the previously unpublishedKronstadt in the Russian Revolution byEfim Yarchuk, one of the main organisers of the Kronstadt anarchists.[3]
As a translator, he brought Polish libertarian essayistJan Wacław Machajski (1866-1926) to the attention of francophone readers, publishing Makhaïski'sSocialism of the Intellectuals, a Critique of the Capitalists of Learning.[5]
Facing the Enemy: A History of Anarchist Organization is a history of European anarchism, based on decades of research, focused on the "core problem" of how "to create a revolutionary movement and envision a future society in which the autonomy of the individual is not compromised by the need to take collective action".[10][11]
He recorded manyoral histories of French activists and exiled Russian activists, co-authoring many movement memoirs, often working withBernard Bastiat [fr]. Publications from this work included texts withMarcel Body [fr], Swiss activistAndré Bösiger, and Makhnov associateNicola Tchorbadieff [fr].[5]
