Anarchism in Russia developed out of thepopulist andnihilist movements' dissatisfaction with thegovernment reforms of the time.
The first Russian to identify himself as an anarchist was therevolutionary socialistMikhail Bakunin, who became a founding figure of the modern anarchist movement within theInternational Workingmen's Association (IWA). In the context of thesplit within the IWA between theMarxists and the anarchists, the RussianLand and Liberty organization also split between aMarxist faction that supported political struggle and ananarchist faction that supported "propaganda of the deed", the latter of which went on to orchestrate theassassination ofAlexander II.
Specifically anarchist groups such as theBlack Banner began to emerge at the turn of the 20th century, culminating with the anarchist participation in the Russian Revolutions of1905 and1917. Though initially supportive of theBolsheviks, many anarchists turned against them in the wake of thetreaty of Brest-Litovsk, launching a "Third Revolution" against the government with the intention of restoringsoviet democracy. But this attempted revolution was crushed by 1921, definitively ending with the suppression of theKronstadt rebellion and the defeat of theRevolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine.
The anarchist movement lived on during the time of theSoviet Union in small pockets, largely within theGulag where anarchist political prisoners were sent, but by the late 1930s its old guard had either fled into exile, died or disappeared during theGreat Purge. Following a number of uprisings in the wake of thedeath of Stalin,libertarian communism began to reconstitute itself within thedissidenthuman rights movement, and by the time of thedissolution of the Soviet Union, the anarchist movement had re-emerged onto the public sphere. In the modern day, anarchists make up a part of theopposition movement to the government ofVladimir Putin.
In 1848, on his return toParis,Mikhail Bakunin published a fiery tirade againstRussia, which caused his expulsion fromFrance. Therevolutionary movement of 1848 gave him the opportunity to join aradicalcampaign of democratic agitation, and for his participation in theMay Uprising in Dresden of 1849 he was arrested and condemned to death. Thedeath sentence, however, wascommuted tolife imprisonment, and he was eventually handed over to the Russian authorities, by whom he was imprisoned and finally sent to EasternSiberia in 1857.
Bakunin received permission to move to theAmur region, where he started collaborating with his relative General CountNikolay Muravyov-Amursky, who had beenGovernor of Eastern Siberia for ten years. When Muravyov was removed from his position, Bakunin lost his stipend. He succeeded in escaping, probably with the collusion of the authorities and made his way throughJapan and theUnited States toEngland in 1861. He spent the rest of his life in exile inWestern Europe, principally inSwitzerland.
In January 1869,Sergey Nechayev spread false rumors of his arrest inSaint Petersburg, then left forMoscow before heading abroad. InGeneva, he pretended to be a representative of a revolutionary committee who had fled from thePeter and Paul Fortress, and he won the confidence of revolutionary-in-exileMikhail Bakunin and his friendNikolay Ogarev.
Bakunin played a prominent part in developing and elaborating the theory ofanarchism and in leading the anarchist movement. He left a deep imprint on the movement of the Russian "revolutionary commoners" of the 1870s.
In 1873,Peter Kropotkin was arrested and imprisoned, but escaped in 1876 and went toEngland, moving after a short stay to Switzerland, where he joined theJura Federation. In 1877 he went toParis, where he helped to start the anarchist movement there. He returned to Switzerland in 1878, where he edited a revolutionary newspaper for the Jura Federation calledLe Révolté, subsequently also publishing various revolutionary pamphlets.
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After an assassination attempt, CountMikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov was appointed the head of the Supreme Executive Commission and given extraordinary powers to fight the revolutionaries. Loris-Melikov's proposals called for some form of parliamentary body, and the EmperorAlexander II seemed to agree; these plans were never realized as of March 13 (March 1Old Style), 1881, Alexander was assassinated: while driving on one of the central streets of St. Petersburg, near theWinter Palace, he was mortally wounded by hand-made grenades and died a few hours afterwards. The conspiratorsNikolai Kibalchich,Sophia Perovskaya,Nikolai Rysakov,Timofey Mikhailov, andAndrei Zhelyabov were all arrested and sentenced to death.Hesya Helfman was sent toSiberia. The assassin was identified asIgnacy Hryniewiecki (Ignatei Grinevitski), who died during the attack.
Although he did not call himself an anarchist,Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) in his later writings formulated a philosophy that amounted to advocating resistance to the state, and influenced the worldwide development of anarchism as well aspacifism worldwide. In a series of books and articles, includingWhat I Believe (1884) (Russian:В чём моя вера?) andChristianity and Patriotism (1894), (Russian:Христианство и патриотизм) Tolstoy used the Christian gospels as a starting-point for an ideology that held violence as the ultimate evil.[1]
Tolstoy professed contempt for the private ownership of land, but his anarchism lay primarily in his view that the state exists essentially as an instrument of compulsory force, which he considered the antithesis of all religious teachings. He once wrote, "A man who unconditionally promises in advance to submit to laws which are made and will be made by men, by this very promise renounces Christianity."[1]
In the 1880s Tolstoy'spacifist anarchism gained a following in Russia. In the following decades theTolstoyan movement, which Tolstoy himself had not expected or encouraged, spread through Russia and to other countries. Resistance to war had particular meaning in Russia since Emperor Alexander II had implemented compulsory military service in 1874. From the 1880s into the early 20th century, an increasing number of young men refused military service on the basis of a Tolstoyan moral objection to war. Such actions moved Tolstoy, and he often participated in the defense of peaceful objectors in court.[1]
Many people inspired by Tolstoy's version of Christian morality set up agricultural communes in various parts of Russia, pooling their income and producing their own food, shelter and goods. Tolstoy appreciated such efforts but sometimes criticized these groups for isolating themselves from the rest of the country, feeling that the communes did little to contribute to a worldwide peace movement.[1]
Although Tolstoy's actions frequently diverged from the ideals he set for himself (for example, he owned a large estate), his followers continued to promote the Tolstoyan vision of world peace well after his death in 1910.[1]
Individualist anarchism was one of the three categories of anarchism in Russia, along with the more prominentanarcho-communism andanarcho-syndicalism.[2] The ranks of the Russian individualist anarchists were predominantly drawn from theintelligentsia and theworking class.[2] For anarchist historianPaul Avrich "The two leading exponents of individualist anarchism, both based inMoscow, wereAleksei Alekseevich Borovoi andLev Chernyi (Pavel Dmitrievich Turchaninov). FromNietzsche, they inherited the desire for a complete overturn of all values accepted by bourgeois society- political, moral, and cultural. Furthermore, strongly influenced byMax Stirner andBenjamin Tucker, the German and American theorists of individualist anarchism, they demanded the total liberation of the human personality from the fetters of organized society."[2]
Some Russian individualist anarchists "found the ultimate expression of their social alienation in violence and crime, others attached themselves to avant-garde literary and artistic circles, but the majority remained"philosophical" anarchists who conducted animated parlor discussions and elaborated their individualist theories in ponderous journals and books."[2]
Lev Chernyi was an important individualist anarchist involved in resistance against the rise to power of the Bolshevik Party. He adhered mainly to Stirner and the ideas ofBenjamin Tucker. In 1907, he published a book entitledAssociational Anarchism, in which he advocated the "free association of independent individuals."[3] On his return from Siberia in 1917 he enjoyed great popularity among Moscow workers as a lecturer. Chernyi was also Secretary of theMoscow Federation of Anarchist Groups, which was formed in March 1917.[3] He was an advocate "for the seizure of private homes",[3] which was an activity seen by the anarchists after the October revolution as direct expropriation on the bourgeoisie. He died after being accused of participation in an episode in which this group bombed the headquarters of the Moscow Committee of the Communist Party. Although most likely not being really involved in the bombing, he might have died of torture.[3]
Chernyi advocated aNietzscheanoverthrow of the values of bourgeois Russian society, and rejected the voluntarycommunes ofanarcho-communistPeter Kropotkin as a threat to the freedom of the individual.[4][5][6] Scholars including Avrich and Allan Antliff have interpreted this vision of society to have been greatly influenced by theindividualist anarchistsMax Stirner, andBenjamin Tucker.[7] Subsequent to the book's publication, Chernyi was imprisoned inSiberia under the RussianCzarist regime for his revolutionary activities.[8]
On the other hand,Alexei Borovoi (1876?-1936),[9] was a professor of philosophy at Moscow University, "a gifted orator and the author of numerous books, pamphlets, and articles which attempted to reconcile individualist anarchism with the doctrines of syndicallism".[3] He wrote among other theoretical works,Anarkhizm in 1918 just after the October revolution[3] andAnarchism and Law.[9]
The origin of the Doukhobors dates back to 16th- and 17th-centuryMuscovy. The Doukhobors ("Spirit Wrestlers") are a radicalChristian sect who maintained a belief inpacifism and a communal lifestyle while rejecting secular government. In 1899, the most zealous third (about 7,400) Doukhobors fled repression inImperial Russia and migrated toCanada, mostly in the provinces ofSaskatchewan andBritish Columbia. The funds for the trip were paid for by theReligious Society of Friends and the Russian novelistLeo Tolstoy. Peter Kropotkin suggested Canada to Tolstoy as a safe-haven for the Doukhobors because while on a speaking tour across Canada, Kropotkin observed the religious tolerance experienced by theMennonites.
The first anarchist groups to attract a significant following of Russian workers or peasants, were theanarcho-communistChernoe-Znamia groups, founded inBiałystok in 1903. They drew their support mainly from the impoverished and persecuted working-class Jews of the "Pale"-the places on the Western borders of the Russian Empire where Jews were "allowed" to live. The Chernoe Znamia made their first attack in 1904, when Nisan Farber, a devoted member of the group, stabbed a strike-breaking industrialist on the Jewish Day of Atonement. The Chernoe Znamia,Left SRs andZionists of Bialystock congregated inside a forest to decide their next action. At the end of the meeting the shouts of "Long Live the Social Revolution" and "Hail Anarchy" attracted the police to the secret meeting. Violence ensued, leaving many revolutionaries arrested or wounded. In vengeance, Nisan Farber threw a homemade bomb at a police station, killing himself and injuring many. He quickly became a Revolutionary Martyr to the Anarchists, and whenBloody Sunday broke out in St Petersburg his actions began to be imitated by the rest of the Chernoe Znamias. Obtaining weapons was the first objective. Police stations, gun shops and arsenals were raided and their stock stolen. Bomb labs were set up and money gleaned from expropriations went to buying more weapons fromVienna. Bialystock became a warzone, virtually everyday an Anarchist attack or a Police repression.Ekaterinoslav,Odessa,Warsaw andBaku all became witnesses to more and more gunpoint hold-ups and tense shootouts. Sticks of dynamite were thrown into factories or mansions of the most loathed capitalists. Workers were encouraged to overthrow their bosses and manage the factory for themselves. Workers and peasants throughout the Empire took this advice to heart and sporadic uprisings in the remote countryside became a common sight. The Western borderlands in particular - the cities ofRussianPoland,Ukraine andLithuania flared up in anger and hatred.
The Revolution in the Pale reached a bloody climax in November and December 1905 with the bombing of theHotel Bristol inWarsaw and the Cafe Libman inOdessa. After the suppression of the December Uprising in Moscow, the Anarchists retreated for a while, but soon returned to the Revolution. Even the small towns and villages of the countryside had their own Anarchist fighting groups. But the tide was turning against the revolutionaries. In 1907, the Tsarist MinisterStolypin set about his new "pacification" program. Police received more arms, orders and reinforcements to raid Anarchist centres. The police would track the Anarchists to their headquarters and then strike swiftly and brutally. The Anarchists were tried by court martial in which preliminary investigation was waived, verdicts delivered within 2 days and sentences executed immediately. Rather than succumb to the ignominy of arrest, many Anarchists preferred suicide when cornered. Those that were caught would usually deliver a rousing speech on Justice and Anarchy before they were executed, in the manner ofRavachol andÉmile Henry. By 1909 most of the Anarchists were either dead, exiled or in jail. Anarchism was not to resurface in Russia until 1917.
In 1917, Peter Kropotkin returned toPetrograd, where he helpedAlexander Kerensky'sRussian Provisional Government to formulate policies. He curtailed his activity when theBolsheviks came to power.
Following the abdication ofCzar Nicholas II in February 1917 and the subsequent creation of a Provisional Government, many Russian anarchists joined the Bolsheviks in campaigning for further revolution. Since the repression after theRevolution of 1905, new anarchist organizations had been slowly and quietly growing in Russia, and in 1917 saw a new opportunity to end state power.[10]
Though within the next year they would come to consider the Bolsheviks traitors to the socialist cause, urban anarchist groups initially saw Lenin and his comrades as allies in the fight against capitalist oppression. Understanding the need for widespread support in his quest for Communism, Lenin often deliberately appealed to anarchist sentiments in the eight months between the February and October Revolutions.[11] Many optimistic anarchists interpreted Lenin's slogan of “All Power to the Soviets!” as the potential for a Russia run by autonomous collectives without the burden of central authority.[12] Lenin also described the triumph of Communism as the eventual “withering away of the state.”[13]All this time, however, anarchists remained wary of the Bolsheviks.Mikhail Bakunin, the hero of Russian anarchism, had expressed skepticism toward the scientific, excessively rational nature of Marxism. He and his followers preferred a more instinctive form of revolution.[14] One of them, Bill Shatov, described the anarchists as “the romanticists of the Revolution.”[15] Their eagerness to get the ball rolling became apparent during theJuly Days, in which Petrograd soldiers, sailors and workers revolted in an attempt to claim power for thePetrograd Soviet. While this was not an anarchist-driven event, the anarchists of Petrograd played a large role in inciting the people of the city to action. In any case, Lenin was not amused by the revolt and instructed those involved to quiet down until he told them otherwise.[16]
In spite of some tension between the groups, the anarchists remained largely supportive of Lenin right up to the October Revolution. Several anarchists participated in the overthrow of the Provisional Government, and even the Military Revolutionary Committee that orchestrated the coup.[17]
At first it seemed to some Anarchists the revolution could inaugurate the stateless society they had long dreamed of. On these terms, some Bolshevik-Anarchist alliances were made. In Moscow, the most perilous and critical tasks during the October Revolution fell upon the Anarchist Regiment, led by the old libertarians, and it was they who dislodged the Whites from the Kremlin, the Metropole and other defenses. In addition, it was the Anarchist sailor who led the attack on the Constituent Assembly in October 1917. For a while, the Anarchists rejoiced, elated at the thought of the new age that Russia had won.
Bolshevik-anarchist relations soon turned sour as the various anarchist groups realized that the Bolsheviks were not interested in pluralism, but rather a centralized one-party rule. A few prominent anarchist figures such as Bill Shatov and Yuda Roshchin, despite their disappointment, encouraged anarchists to cooperate with the Bolsheviks in the present conflict with the hope that there would be time to negotiate.[15] But most anarchists became disillusioned quite quickly with their supposed Bolshevik allies, who took over the soviets and placed them under Communist control.
The sense of betrayal came to a head in March 1918, when Lenin signed theBrest-Litovsk peace treaty with Germany. Though the Bolshevik leaders claimed that the treaty was necessary to allow the revolution to progress, anarchists widely saw it as an excessive compromise which counteracted the idea of international revolution.[18] The Bolsheviks had begun to see the anarchists as a legitimate threat and associated criminality such asrobberies,expropriations andmurders with anarchist associations. Subsequently, theCouncil of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) decided to liquidate criminal recklessness which was associated with anarchists and disarm all anarchist groups in the face of their militancy.[19] After months of increasing anarchist resistance and dwindling Bolshevik patience, the Communist government decisively split with their libertarian agitators in the spring of 1918. In Moscow and Petrograd the newly formedCheka was sent in to disband all anarchist organizations, and largely succeeded.[20]
On the night of April 12, 1918, theCheka raided 26 anarchist centres inMoscow, including theHouse of Anarchy, the headquarters of the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups. A fierce battle raged on Malaia Dimitrovka Street. About 40 anarchists were killed or wounded, and approximately 500 were imprisoned. A dozen Cheka agents had also been killed in the fighting. Anarchists joinedMensheviks andLeft Socialist revolutionaries in boycotting the 1918 May Day celebrations. Bolshevik repressions of anarchist organizationsprompted a series of assassination attempts on the Russian Communist leadership.[21]
By this time some belligerent anarchist dissenters armed themselves and formed groups of so-called “Black Guards” that continued to fight Communist power on a small scale as the Civil War began.[22] The urban anarchist movement, however, was dead.
The anthropologistEric Wolf asserts that peasants in rebellion are "natural" anarchists.[23] After initially looking favorably upon the Bolsheviks for their proposed land reforms, by 1918 peasants largely came to despise the new government as it became increasingly centralized and exploitative in its dealings with the rural population. Marxist-Leninists had never given the peasants great credit, and with the Civil War against theWhite Armies underway, theRed Army primarily used peasant villages as suppliers of grain, which it “requisitioned,” or in other words, seized by force.[24]
Abused equally by the Red and invading White armies, large groups of peasants, as well as Red Army deserters, formed “Green” armies that resisted the Reds and Whites alike. These forces had no grand political agenda like their enemies, for the most part they simply wanted to stop being harassed and be allowed to govern themselves. Though the Green Armies have largely been ignored by history (and by Soviet historians in particular), they constituted a formidable force and a major threat to Red victory in the Civil War. Even after the party declared the Civil War over in 1920, the Red-Green war persisted for some time.[24]
Red Army generals noted that in many regions peasant rebellions were heavily influenced by anarchist leaders and ideas.[24][25] In Ukraine, the most notorious peasant rebel leader was an anarchist general namedNestor Makhno. Makhno had originally led his forces in collaboration with the Red Army against the Whites. In the region of Ukraine where his forces were stationed, Makhno oversaw the development of an autonomous system of government based on the productive coordination of communes. According to Peter Marshall, a historian of anarchism, "For more than a year, anarchists were in charge of a large territory, one of the few examples of anarchy in action on a large scale in modern history.[26]
Unsurprisingly, the Bolsheviks came to see Makhno's experiment in self-government as a threat in need of elimination, and in 1920 the Red Army sought to take control of Makhno's forces. They resisted, but the officers (not including Makhno himself) were arrested and executed by the end of 1920. Makhno continued to fight before going into exile in Paris the next year.[27]
The attemptedThird Russian Revolution began in July 1918 with the assassination of the German Ambassador to the Soviet Union in order to prevent the signing of theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk. This was immediately followed by an artillery attack on theKremlin and the occupation of the telegraph and telephone buildings by theLeft SRs who sent out several manifestos appealing to the people to rise up against their oppressors and destroy the Bolshevik regime. But whilst this order was not followed by the people of Moscow, the peasants of South Russia responded vigorously to this call to arms. Bands ofChernoe Znamia and Beznachaly anarchist terrorists flared up as rapidly and violently as they had done in 1905. Anarchists inRostov,Ekaterinoslav andBriansk broke into prisons to liberate the anarchist prisoners and issued fiery proclamations calling on the people to revolt against the Bolshevik regime. The Anarchist Battle Detachments attacked theWhites, Reds and Germans alike. Many peasants joined the Revolution, attacking their enemies with pitchforks and sickles. Meanwhile, in Moscow, the Underground Anarchists were formed by Kazimir Kovalevich and Piotr Sobalev to be the shock troops of the Revolution, infiltrating Bolshevik ranks and striking when least expected. On 25 September 1919, the Underground Anarchists struck the Bolsheviks with the heaviest blow of the Revolution. The headquarters of the Moscow Committee of the Communist Party was blown up, killing 12 and injuring 55 Party members, includingNikolai Bukharin and Emilian Iaroslavskii. Spurred on by their apparent success, the Underground Anarchists proclaimed a new "era of dynamite" that would finally wipe away capitalism and the State. The Bolsheviks responded by initiating a new wave of mass arrests in which Kovalevich and Sobalev were the first to be shot. With their leaders dead and much of their organization in tatters, the remaining Underground Anarchists blew themselves up in their last battle with the Cheka, taking much of their safe house with them. Numerous attacks and assassinations occurred frequently until the Revolution finally petered out in 1922. Although the Revolution was mainly a Left SR initiative, it was the Anarchists who had the support of a greater number of the population and they participated in almost all of the attacks the Left SRs organized, and also many on completely their own initiative. The most celebrated figures of theThird Russian Revolution,Lev Chernyi andFanya Baron were both Anarchists.
Following the suppression of the anarchist movement in Russia, a number of anarchists fled the country into exile, such asEmma Goldman,Alexander Berkman,Alexander Schapiro,Volin,Mark Mratchny,Grigorii Maksimov,Boris Yelensky,Senya Fleshin andMollie Steimer, who went on to establish relief organizations which provided aid for anarchist political prisoners back in Russia.[28]
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To the disillusioned Russian anarchist exiles, the experience of the Russian Revolution had fully justified Mikhail Bakunin's earlier declaration that "socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."[29] Russian anarchists living abroad began to openly attack the "new kings" of theCommunist Party, criticising the NEP as a restoration of capitalism and comparingVladimir Lenin to the Spanish inquisitorTomás de Torquemada, the Italian political philosopherNiccolò Machiavelli and the French revolutionaryMaximilien Robespierre. They positioned themselves in opposition to the Bolshevik government, calling for the destruction of Russian state capitalism and its replacement withworkers' self-management byfactory committees andcouncils.[30] But while anarchist exiles were united in their criticisms of the Bolshevik government and their recognition that the Russian anarchist movement had collapsed due to its disorganization, their internal divisions remained, with theanarcho-syndicalists aroundGrigorii Maksimov,Efim Yarchuk andAlexander Schapiro establishingThe Workers' Way as their organ, whileanarcho-communists aroundPeter Arshinov andVolin establishedThe Anarchist Herald as their own.[31]
The anarcho-syndicalists looked to remedy the issue of anarchist disorganization through the foundation of a new international organization, culminating in the establishment of theInternational Workers' Association (IWA) in December 1922.[32] The IWA analyzed the events of the Russian Revolution as having been a project to buildstate socialism rather thanrevolutionary socialism, called for the construction oftrade unions to win short-term gains while building towards ageneral strike and declared their goal to be asocial revolution that would abolish centralized states and replace them with a network ofworkers' councils.[33] Maxmioff later moved to theUnited States, where he editedThe Laborer's Voice, aRussian language publication of theIndustrial Workers of the World (IWW).[34]
Meanwhile, the anarcho-communists around theWorkers' Cause journal began to develop theplatformist tendency, calling for the construction of a tightly coordinated anarchist organization, which was supported chiefly by Peter Arshinov andNestor Makhno.[35] This platform was criticized as authoritarian by a number of dissenting voices, including Voline,Senya Fleshin andMollie Steimer.[36] Arshinov and Makhno's short-tempered response to these criticisms drew the ire of other Russian exiles such asAlexander Berkman andEmma Goldman, who denounced them respectively as a "Bolshevik" and a "militarist",[37] while also expressing a distaste with Fleshin and Steimer's factionalism.[38]
During the late 1920s, a number of anarchist exiles decided to return to Russia and appealed to the Soviet government for permission. With the aid of theRight OppositionistNikolai Bukharin, Efim Iarchuk was permitted to return in 1925, after which he joined the Communist Party.[39] In 1930, Arshniov also returned to Russia under amnesty and joined the Communist Party, leavingDielo Truda in the editorial hands of Grigorii Maksimov.[40] Under Maksimov, the publication took on a notable syndicalist stance while also offering a platform to other anarchist tendencies, becoming the Russian anarchist exiles' most important publication.[41] Maksimov attempted to bridge the divide between the anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists, publishing asocial credo that attempted to synthesise the two along the lines ofPeter Kropotkin's earlier works. Maksimov suggested the establishment ofagricultural cooperatives andfactory committees that could oversee the improvement of conditions and reduction of working hours during the transition tocommunism, the replacement of prisons with public welfare institutions and disbandment of standing armies in favor of a "people's militia", and the taking over of product distribution by a network ofhousing andconsumer cooperatives.[42] He also denounced theCommunist International and claimed that the IWA was the true successor to the First International ofKarl Marx andMikhail Bakunin, due to their adherence to the idea that "the liberation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves", condemningcentralization as leading inevitably tobureaucracy - as evidenced by the events in Russia.[43] In his later years, Maksimov published his history of the Soviet UnionThe Guillotine at Work and edited thecollected works of Mikhail Bakunin.[44]
The remnants of the Russian anarchist exiles began to wane during the 1930s, as their journals became less frequent and filled with republications of old texts, their activities mostly consisted of celebrating the anniversaries of past events and their criticisms became increasingly levelled atJoseph Stalin andAdolf Hitler. The events of theSpanish Revolution briefly revived the exile movement, but after the defeat of theRepublicans in theSpanish Civil War, the exiles largely ceased activity.[45] During this period a number of the exiled anarchist old guard began to die off, including Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman during the late 1930s, and Voline, Alexander Schapiro and Grigorii Maksimov in the wake of theAllied victory inWorld War II.[46] The survivingAbba Gordin had since shifted away from communism, publishing a critique ofMarxism in 1940 that concluded it was an ideology of "a privileged class of politico-economic organisateurs" rather than of workers, and further characterized the Russian Revolution as a "managerial revolution". Gordin increasingly gravitated towardsnationalism, culminating in his adoption ofZionism and his eventual emigration toIsrael, where he would die in 1964.[47]
Following the suppression of theKronstadt rebellion, the Communist Party's10th Congress implemented theNew Economic Policy (NEP), which put an end towar communism and transformed theSoviet economy into a form ofstate capitalism.[48] Many of the "Soviet anarchists" that had previously sought conciliation with the Bolshevik government quickly became disillusioned with the policies of the NEP, which they regarded as a step back from their revolutionary aims, and subsequently resigned from their posts in order to pursue scholarly activities.[49]
The Congress also instituted the suppression of any remaining opposition to Bolshevik rule, whichbanned internal party factions such as theWorkers' Opposition and ordered apurge of anarchist and syndicalist elements.[50] Anarchists were rounded up by theCheka and tried by aRevolutionary Tribunal, with many either being sentenced to internal exile or sent toconcentration camps, where they endured harsh living conditions.[48] Anarchist political prisoners in theSolovki prison camp protested their internment with a series ofhunger strikes, some even committingself-immolation, which led to their removal from theSolovetsky Islands and their dispersal to various other Gulags in theUrals andSiberia.[51] Some key figures of the anarchist old guard began to die off during this period, includingPeter Kropotkin,Varlam Cherkezishvili,Jan Wacław Machajski andApollon Karelin.[52]
The Bolshevik government did allow some anarchist activity to continue peacefully through the 1920s. The bookshop owned byGolos Truda remained open and publishedMikhail Bakunin's collected works, the work of the Kropotkin Museum was allowed to continue without interference, and a number of prominent anarchists secured permission to publicly protest against the execution of the Italian American anarchistsNicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.[53] However, by 1928 a factional dispute had broken out over control of the Kropotkin Museum, in spite of Kropotkin's widow Sofia's attempts to secure the museum's future,[54] and the following year the establishments owned byGolos Truda were permanently closed down by the authorities.[55] TheTolstoyan movement was also forced to relocate itsLife and Labor Commune toSiberia, where a number of their members were arrested.[56]
Following theestablishment of theSoviet Union,Vladimir Lenin was left incapacitated by a stroke and aTroika made up ofLev Kamenev,Joseph Stalin andGrigory Zinoviev assumed control of the state. The Troika government was briefly opposed by thecouncil communists of theWorkers' Group, but they were swiftly expelled from the Communist Party and eventually repressed entirely.[57] WhenLenin died of his ailments, a power struggle broke out between the Communist Party's various factions: theright-wing led byNikolai Bukharin, the centre led by the Troika and theleft-wing led byLeon Trotsky.
When Stalin allied himself with the right-wing policy ofsocialism in one country, the Troika broke up, with Kamenev and Zinoviev forming a "United Opposition" in coalition with the left-wing. The Opposition demandedfreedom of expression within the party, called for an end to theNew Economic Policy (NEP), and proposed therapid industrialization of the economy and a reduction of statebureaucracy. The "anarcho-Bolshevik"Victor Serge subsequently joined the Opposition upon his return to the country, but predicted its defeat at the hands ofreactionary forces within the party. The Opposition was defeated at the15th Party Congress, with many of its members being expelled from the party and forced into exile, where Serge became an outspoken critic of the authoritarian way that Stalin governed the country - describing theSoviet government as "totalitarian". The anarcho-syndicalistMaksim Rayevsky, who had previously editedGolos Truda andBurevestnik, was also arrested for publishing the Opposition's platform.[55]
With the Opposition purged,Joseph Stalin had completed hisrise to power. He subsequentlybroke with theNew Economic Policy (NEP) and shifted the economy towards afive-year plan ofrapid industrialization andforced collectivization, marking the beginning of theStalinist era. The introduction oftotalitarianism in the Soviet Union brought a quick end to the anarchist activity that had been tolerated during the 1920s under the NEP, as a new wave ofpolitical repression was unleashed, with many anarchists being arrested and internally exiled toSiberia andCentral Asia.[55] While internally exiled inTobolsk, the anarchist Dmitri Venediktov was arrested on the charges of "Disseminating rumors about loans and dissatisfaction with the Soviet regime", and within three days was sentenced toexecution without appeal.[58]
During theGreat Purge, many that had participated in the Revolution were arrested and executed, including a number ofOld Bolsheviks,Trotskyists and anarchists. A number of members of the anarchist old guard such asAlexander Atabekian,German Askarov andAlexei Borovoi were noted to have died during the Purge,[55] with others such asAron Baron disappearing upon their release from prison. Even Efim Iarchuk andPeter Arshinov, who had both experienced a rapprochement with the Bolsheviks and returned to the Soviet Union, also disappeared during the Purge.[39] By 1937, theLife and Labor Commune had been converted into a state-ownedcollective farm, its members were arrested and sent tolabor camps, with their settlements disbanded entirely. And by 1938, the few remaining people that were maintaining the Kropotkin Museum had themselves become subject to repression, leading to the museum's closure following the death ofSofia Kropotkin.[59]
But despite the elimination of the anarchist old guard during the Purge, anarchist activity continued at a reduced scale. A new generation of anarchists emerged within the Gulags, with some participating in a 15-day hunger strike at the Penalty Isolator inYaroslavl.[60] Following the Allied victory inWorld War II, many POWs that were freed by theRed Army were subsequently met with deportation to Gulag camps in Siberia. There, a number of Marxist and anarchist POWs established the Democratic Movement of Northern Russia, which organized an uprising in 1947 that spread throughout several camps before being suppressed by the army.[61] Anarchist tendencies subsequently spread throughout many of the Siberian camps, culminating in 1953 when thedeath of Stalin brought with it a wave ofuprisings, some of which included anarchist participation. TheNorilsk uprising, in particular, saw the active participation of a number of Ukrainian Makhnovists.[61]
The power struggle that followed in the wake of Stalin's death ended with the consolidation of control byNikita Khrushchev, who implemented areform program that relaxedpolitical repression andcensorship, released millions ofpolitical prisoners from theGulag and instituted ade-Stalinization of Soviet society. Adissident protest movement began to emerge in the public sphere for the first time in decades, with a number oflibertarian communists inspired byYugoslaviansocialist self-management developinganti-statist tendencies and some even going on to call themselves anarchists.[62]
Khrushchev launched a crackdown on the nascent anarchist movement, with many of the new generation ending up in Gulag camps, often under the charge of "anti-Soviet propaganda". Given that openly identifying as an anarchist was dangerous, some anarchists identified themselves with the emerginghuman rights movement.[63] Anarchists in Leningrad were arrested for providing aid to the dissidentYuri Galanskov and one anarchist dock worker was arrested for agitating among his colleagues.[61]
During theera of Stagnation, a new group known as the "Left Opposition" was established by a collective of Leningrad students in 1978. Led by thelibertarian socialist,Alexander Skobov, they established a commune in the city, which acted as a meeting place for left-wing Soviet dissidents, and published their own journalPerspektivy.[64] The journal published articles by a number of different authors of various tendencies, including anarchist authors likeMikhail Bakunin,Peter Kropotkin andDaniel Cohn-Bendit,[65] as well as Marxist authors likeLeon Trotsky andHerbert Marcuse. The ideas published in their programme were characterized as "ultra-left", positioning itself against the Soviet state and in favor offreedom of association and the right toself-determination. Some more radical members of the group, inspired by theRed Army Faction, even called for the use of armed struggle and illegalist methods against the state,[66] but its leaders Arkady Tsurkov and Alexander Skobov encouragednonviolence. The group planned to organize a conference that would bring together leftist dissident groups from throughout the Union, but the planned conference was postponed by anorthodox Marxist group and eventually called off entirely due to political repression preventing delegates from arriving. The commune was raided, their members followed and their leaders sentenced to years in the Gulag.[64]
As the Communist Party began to lose its grip on power, and in the face of risingnationalism, Russian anarchists called fordecentralization andfederalism as a way forward, once again proposingMikhail Bakunin's earlier model for re-organising the region into a "loose federation of autonomous republics." But following the1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, during which members of theConfederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (KAS) defended a barricade at theWhite House, thedissolution of the Soviet Union took effect and theRussian Federation was established.[65]
Contemporary anarchist groups in Russia include the Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists (KRAS-MAT) and the libertarian communistAutonomous Action, both of which advocate direct action, strikes, and anti-Fascist actions. TheSiberian Confederation of Labour connects anarcho-syndicalists across Russia. Between 800 and 1,000 Russians were estimated to be active anarchists in the early 2010s.[67]
Autonomous Action (Russian:Автономное действие) played a major role in the 2011-2013 Russian protest movement against the regime ofVladimir Putin.[68] In August 2013, at the XII Congress of Autonomous Action there was an intra-organizational conflict that grew into a split in the organization.[69] For several months, two organizations were operating in Russia bearing the name "Autonomous Action" and standing on similar libertarian-communist positions. However, on October 27, 2013, the breakaway group adopted the name Autonomous Action (Social-Revolutionary) (ADSR).[70] (later this organization was renamed "People's Self-Defense"[71])
On October 31, 2018,Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a seventeen-year-old college student, committed asuicide bombing against a localFSB headquarters inArkhangelsk.[72][73] In a social media message allegedly posted by Zholbitsky prior to the attack stated that he was ananarcho-communist and carried out the attack against the FSB due to their persistent use of torture and evidence fabrication.[74]
Anarchists have played a significant role in Russian opposition to the2022 invasion of Ukraine, including the2022 military commissariats arsons.The Insider has named theCombat Organization of Anarcho-Communists "the most active 'subversive' force" in the country since the beginning of the invasion.[75] On 19 April 2023,Dmitry Petrov, one of the organisation's founders, was killed in thebattle of Bakhmut while fighting for theUkrainian Territorial Defense Forces.[76]
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