Unknown Revolution: 1917-1921

by Voline Voline, Iain McKay (Introduction), Rudolf Rocker (Foreword by)

Overview

This is the untold story of the Russian Revolution: its antecedents, its far-reaching changes, its betrayal by Bolshevik terror, and the massive resistance of non-Bolshevik revolutionaries. This in-depth, eyewitness history written by Voline, an outspoken activist in the Russian Revolution, is accompanied by a biography of the author by Rudolf Rocker and a contemporary introduction by anarchist historian Iain McKay.

Significant attention is given to what the author describes as “struggles for the real Social Revolution”; that is, the uprising of the sailors and workers of Kronstadt in 1921, and the peasant movement that Nestor Makhno led in Ukraine. These movements, which sought to defend the social revolution from destruction by the politicians, provide important material for a clearer understanding of both the original objectives of the Russian Revolution and the problems with which all revolutions with far-reaching social objectives have to contend.

Drawing on the revolutionary press of the time, Voline reveals the deep cleavage between the objectives of the libertarians and those of the Bolsheviks, differences which the latter “resolved” by ruthlessly eliminating all who stood in their way in the struggle for power.

This edition is a translation of the full text of La Révolution inconnue, originally published in French in 1947. It reinstates material omitted from earlier English-language editions and reproduces the complete text of the original volumes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781629635774
Publisher:	PM Press
Publication date:	05/01/2019
Edition description:	None
Pages:	752
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Voline (Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum, 1882–1945), writer, educator, poet, and anarchist, was an outspoken activist in the Russian Revolution. Exiled by the Tsarist tribunal, then sentenced to death by Trotsky and rescued amid protests, he never ceased to live up to his chosen nom de guerre based on the Russian word for freedom.

Iain McKay is an independent anarchist writer and researcher. He was the main author of An Anarchist FAQ as well as numerous other works, including Mutual Aid: An Introduction and Evaluation. In addition, he has edited and introduced Property Is Theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology; Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology; and Kropotkin’s 1913 book Modern Science and Anarchy.

Rudolf Rocker (1873–1958) was one of the most prominent writers, speakers, and activists of anarchism’s classical period. His works include Nationalism and Culture and Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice. Rocker was an outspoken critic of the suppression of individual freedom and anarchism under Russian communism and a supporter of the Kronstadt uprising and Nestor Makhno’s peasant movement in Ukraine.

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CHAPTER 1

Russia at the Beginning of the 19th Century; Birth of the Revolution

The enormous size of the country, a sparse population whose disunity makes it an easy prey for invaders, Mongol domination for more than two centuries, continual wars, varied catastrophes and other unfavorable factors caused the enormous political, economic, social and cultural backwardness of Russia in relation to other European countries.

Politically, Russia entered the 19th century under the rule of an absolute monarchy (the autocratic "Tsar") which was dependent on an enormous landed and military aristocracy, an omnipotent bureaucracy, an extensive and pious clergy, and a peasant mass consisting of 75,000,000 souls — primitive, illiterate and prostrate before their "little father," the Tsar.

Economically, the country had reached the stage of a type of agrarian feudalism. Except for the two capitals (St. Petersburg and Moscow) and some cities in the South, the cities were hardly developed. Commerce and particularly industry stagnated. The economic base of the country was agriculture which supported 95% of the population. The land did not belong to the direct producers, the peasants, but was the property of the State or of large landed proprietors, the "pomeshchiks." The peasants, legally tied to the land and to the property-owner, were his serfs. The largest proprietors owned veritable fiefs, inherited from their ancestors who, in turn, had received them from the sovereign, the first proprietor, in exchange for services rendered (military, administrative or other). The "lord" determined the life and death of his serfs. He not only made them work as slaves; he could also sell them, punish them and make martyrs out of them (he could kill them without much inconvenience to himself). This serfdom, this slavery on the part of 75,000,000 people, was the economic foundation of the State.

It is hardly possible to talk of the social organization of such a "society." On top were the absolute masters: the Tsar, his numerous relatives, his slavish court, the high nobility, the military caste, the high clergy. On the bottom, the slaves: peasant-serfs in the countryside and the lower class people of the cities, who lacked all notions of civic life, all rights, all freedoms. Between the two, there were certain intermediate strata: merchants, bureaucrats, functionaries, artisans and others — colorless and insignificant.

It is clear that the cultural level of the society was not very high. Nevertheless, already for this period we have to make an important reservation: a striking contrast which we will again describe later, existed between the uneducated and poverty-stricken population of the cities and villages and the privileged strata whose education and training were quite advanced.

The serfdom of the masses was the plague of the country. A few noble-spirited individuals had already protested against this abomination toward the end of the 18th century. They had to pay dearly for their generous gesture. On the other hand, the peasants rebelled with increasing frequency against their masters. Besides local uprisings of a more or less individual nature (against one or another lord who went too far), the peasant masses gave rise to two extensive movements (the Razin uprising in the 17th and the Pugachev uprising in the 18th century) which, though they failed, created enormous problems for the Tsarist government and nearly overthrew the entire system. It should be noted, however, that these two spontaneous movements were directed mainly against the immediate enemy: the landed nobility, the urban aristocracy and the corrupt administration. No general idea of overthrowing the social system in its entirety and replacing it with another and more equitable system was formulated. By using treachery and violence, with the help of the clergy and other reactionary elements, the government succeeded in totally subjugating the peasants, even "psychologically," to such an extent that any movement of widespread revolt was rendered nearly impossible for a long period of time.

The first consciously revolutionary movement directed against the regime appeared in 1825 when, after the death of Alexander I, who left no direct heir, the crown, rejected by his brother Constantine, passed to his other brother Nicholas. Socially, the program of this movement aimed for the abolition of serfdom; politically, for the establishment of a republic or at least a constitutional regime.

This movement emerged, not from among the oppressed, but from the privileged classes. The conspirators, taking advantage of the government's preoccupation with dynastic problems, began to carry out the projects they had long been preparing. In the revolt which broke out in St. Petersburg, they were supported by some of the regiments in the capital. (At the head of the movement there were some officers of the imperial army.) The rebellion was defeated after a short battle at the Senate Square between the insurgents and the troops which remained loyal to the government. Several uprisings which had been planned in the provinces were nipped in the bud.

The revolt made a profound impression on the new Tsar, Nicholas I, and he personally supervised an extremely thorough investigation. The investigators sought and ferreted out even the most distant and platonic sympathizers of the movement. The repression, in its desire to be definitive and "exemplary," did not stop short of cruelty. The five principal instigators died on the scaffold; hundreds were imprisoned, exiled or condemned to hard labor.

Since the revolt took place in December, the participants came to be known as Decembrists. Nearly all belonged to the nobility or to other privileged classes. Nearly all had received professional training or higher education. Open-minded and sensitive, they were pained by the sight of a people weighed down by an arbitrary and unjust regime, by ignorance, poverty, and slavery. They took up the protests of their 18th century predecessors and translated them into action. What gave them the necessary impetus was largely the journey many of them had taken to France after the war of 1812, which made it possible for them to compare the relatively high level of civilization in Europe with the barbaric living conditions of the Russian population. They returned to Russia having made the firm decision to struggle against the backward political and social system which oppressed their countrymen. They rallied many educated individuals to their cause. Pestel, one of the leaders of the movement, even elaborated some vaguely socialist ideas in his program. The famous poet Pushkin (born in 1799) sympathized with the movement, although he did not join it.

As soon as the revolt was put down, the frightened new emperor, Nicholas I, pushed the despotic, bureaucratic and police rule of the Russian State to its extreme.

It should be emphasized that there was no contradiction between the peasants' revolts against their oppressors on the one hand, and their blind veneration of the "little father the Tsar" on the other. The peasant revolts, as we said earlier, were always directed against the immediate oppressors: the landowners ("pomeshchiks"), the nobles, the functionaries, the police. It did not occur to the peasants to look for the source of the oppression further, in the Tsarist regime itself, personified by the Tsar, grand protector of the nobles and the privileged, first and most highly privileged nobleman. To the peasants the Tsar was a type of idol, a superior being high above ordinary mortals, above their small interests and weaknesses, guiding the great destinies of the state. The authorities, the bureaucrats, and above all the priests (the "popes") did all they could to engrave this idea in the peasants' heads. The peasants finally accepted the legend, and later it became unshakeable. The Tsar, they told themselves, wants nothing but the well-being of his "children"; but the privileged intermediaries, interested in preserving their rights and advantages, stand between the Tsar and his people and keep him from knowing their misery. (The peasant masses were convinced that if the people and the Tsar could face each other directly, the Tsar, temporarily misled by the privileged, would see the truth, would get rid of his bad advisors and other dishonest people, and would deal with the sufferings of the tillers of the soil; he would free them from their yoke and would give to them all of the good land which by rights ought to belong to those who work it.) Thus, while sometimes revolting against their most cruel masters, the peasants waited with hope and resignation for the day when the wall separating them from the Tsar would be demolished and social justice would be re-established by the Tsar. Their religious mysticism helped them accept the period of waiting and suffering as a punishment and trial imposed by God. They resigned themselves to it with a primitive fatalism.

This outlook was extremely characteristic of the Russian peasant masses. It became even more pronounced during the nineteenth century, in spite of growing discontent and increasingly frequent individual or local acts of revolt. The peasants were losing patience. But the more impatient they became, the more fervently they waited for their "liberator," the Tsar.

This "legend of the Tsar" was a central characteristic of popular Russian life in the nineteenth century. Failure to take it into account will make it impossible to understand the events that follow. This legend clarifies certain phenomena which would otherwise be unexplainable. It goes a long way toward explaining the Russian paradox which we have already mentioned, a paradox which shocked so many Europeans, and which did not disappear until the outbreak of the 1917 revolution: on the one side are numerous individuals who are cultured, educated, advanced, who want to see their people free and happy, who are aware of the ideas of their time, and who struggle for the emancipation of the working classes, for democracy and socialism. On the other side are people who do nothing for their liberation (aside from a few minor and unimportant revolts), people who remain obstinately prostrate before their idol and their dream, people who do not even understand the gesture of one who sacrifices himself for them. Indifferent, blind to truth, deaf to all appeals, these people wait for the liberator Tsar just as the first Christians waited for the Messiah.

CHAPTER 2

Repression, Violence and Failure; Development Continues (1825-1855)

The reign of Nicholas I lasted from 1825 to 1855. From a revolutionary point of view nothing striking characterizes these years. This thirty year period is nevertheless notable in several important respects.

Having ascended to the throne in the shadow of the Decembrist revolt, Nicholas I undertook to hold the country in an iron vice so as to squelch in the bud any expression of liberalism. He strengthened absolute rule to the limit and succeeded in transforming Russia into a bureaucratic and repressive state.

The French revolution and the revolutionary movements which subsequently shook Europe were nightmares for him. He undertook extraordinary precautionary measures.

The entire population was closely watched. The arbitrariness of the bureaucracy, the police and the courts no longer had any limits. Any expression of independence, any attempt to elude the iron fist of the police was ruthlessly repressed.

Naturally there was not even a shadow of freedom of speech, assembly, or association.

Censorship thrived as never before.

All infractions of the "laws" were punished with the utmost severity.

The Polish uprising of 1831 (drowned in blood with a rare ferocity), as well as the international situation, led the emperor to further accentuate the militarization of the country. People's lives were regulated as in barracks and severe punishment fell on anyone who tried to avoid the imposed discipline.

This sovereign well deserved the name: Nicholas the Fierce.

In spite of all the measures-or rather because of them and their nefarious effects, which the Tsar in his blindness did not take into account — the country (namely certain sections of the population) expressed its discontent at every opportunity.

The landed nobles, pampered by the emperor who considered them his main support, exploited the serfs with impunity and treated them abominably. The peasants became perceptibly irritated. Acts of rebellion against the "pomeshchiks" (lords) and against the local authorities reached alarming proportions. Repressive measures began to lose their effectiveness.

The corruption, incompetence, and caprice of the functionaries grew increasingly unbearable. Since the Tsar needed the support and the violence of the functionaries to "keep the people in line," he would hear nothing and see nothing. The anger of those who suffered from this state of affairs only grew more intense.

The vital forces of the society did not stir. Only the official routine, absurd and impotent, was allowed.

This situation was unavoidably leading toward the future decomposition of the entire system. Powerful only in appearance, the "regime of the knout" was rotten inside. The immense empire was already becoming a "giant with clay feet."

Growing sections of the population were becoming aware of this state of affairs.

The spirit of opposition against this impossible system was infecting the entire society.

It was in these circumstances that the magnificent evolution — both rapid and important — of the young intellectual stratum began.

In a country as large and prolific as Russia, youth were numerous among all classes of the population. What was their general outlook?

Leaving aside the peasant youth, we can observe that the more or less educated younger generations professed advanced ideas. Mid-nineteenth century youth did not readily accept the slavery of the peasants. Tsarist absolutism shocked them. The study of the Western world, which no amount of censorship could prevent (on the contrary, the censorship gave rise to a taste for forbidden fruit), stimulated their imaginations. The rise of the natural sciences and of materialism made a strong impression on them. It was during this same period that Russian literature, taking its inspiration from humanist principles, flowered and exerted a powerful influence on youth, in spite of the censorship, which it successfully circumvented.

At the same time, economically, the labor of the serfs and the absence of all freedoms no longer responded to the pressing needs of the time.

For all these reasons, intellectuals, particularly the youth, were theoretically emancipated toward the end of the reign of Nicholas I. The intellectuals were resolutely opposed to serfdom and absolutism.

It was during this period that the well-known nihilist current was born, as well as a sharp conflict between conservative "fathers" and fiercely progressive "sons," a conflict superbly depicted by Turgenev in his novel, Fathers and Sons.

Outside of Russia a widespread and deeply rooted misunderstanding accompanies the word "nihilism," which originated some 75 years ago in Russian literature and which, due to its Latin origin, passed into other languages without being translated.

In France and elsewhere, "nihilism" is generally understood as a revolutionary political and social doctrine, invented in Russia where it has or had numerous organized adherents. People still speak of a "nihilist party" and of its members, the "nihilists." None of this is exact.

The term "nihilism" was introduced into literature and subsequently into the Russian language by the celebrated novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) in the middle of the nineteenth century. In one of his novels Turgenev used this word to describe a current of ideas — and not a doctrine — which appeared among young Russian intellectuals at the end of 1850. The term caught on and quickly became part of the language.

This current of ideas had an essentially philosophic and largely moral character. Its field of influence was always limited since it never went beyond the intellectual stratum. Its standpoint was always personal and pacifist, which did not keep it from being animated by a generous spirit of revolt and guided by the dream of happiness for all humanity.

The movement which was set off by this current (if one can speak of a movement) did not go beyond the domains of literature and customs (moeurs). Any other type of movement would have been impossible under the regime of the time. However, in these two domains it did not hesitate to draw the logical conclusions which it not only formulated but also sought to apply individually as rules of conduct.

(Continues…)

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Table of Contents

Introduction to the 2019 edition Iain McKay viii

Voline Rudolf Rocker 9

Introduction: Some Essential Preliminary Notes 17

Preface 19

Book I Birth, Growth And Triumph Of The Revolution (1825-1917)

Part I The First Fruits (1825-1905)

1 Russia at the Beginning of the 19th Century; Birth of the Revolution 27

2 Repression, Violence and Failure; Development Continues (1825-1855) 33

3 Reforms; Resumption of the Revolution; "The Failure of Tsarism" and the Failure of Revolution; Reaction (1855-1881) 43

4 The End of the Century; Marxism; Rapid Evolution; Reaction (1881-1900) 51

5 The 20th Century; Hasty Development; Revolutionary Advance; Results (1900-1905) 55

Part II The Jolt (1905-1906)

1 The Gaponist Epic; First General Strike 69

2 The Birth of the "Soviets" 89

3 The Disastrous War; Victory of a Revolutionary Strike 103

4 Defeat of the Revolution; Evaluation of the Jolt 107

5 The "Pause" (1905-1917) 119

Part III The Explosion (1917)

1 War and Revolution 127

2 Triumph of the Revolution 135

3 Toward the Social Revolution 139

4 Toward a Socialist Government; The Poverty of Socialism 149

5 The Bolshevik Revolution 163

Book II Bolshevism And Anarchism

Part I Two Conceptions Of The Revolution

1 Two Opposing Conceptions of Social Revolution 173

2 Causes and Consequences of the Bolshevik Conception 181

Part II About The October Revolution

1 Bolsheviks and Anarchists Before October 209

2 Anarchist Position on the October Revolution 219

3 Other Disagreements 221

4 Some Reflections 225

Part III After October

1 The Bolsheviks in Power; Differences Between the Bolsheviks and the Anarchists 233

2 The Fatal Descent 247

3 The Anarchist Organizations 267

4 The Unknown Anarchist Press in the Russian Revolution 271

5 Some Personal Experiences 289

Part IV Repression

1 The Preparations 305

2 The Discharge 307

3 Unrestrained Fury 311

4 The Case of Leon Tchorny and Fanny Baron 317

5 The Case of Lefevre, Vergeat and Lepetit 321

6 A Personal Experience 325

7 The Final Settlement 333

8 The Extinguisher 337

9 The Deception of Visiting Delegations 341

10 Bolshevik "justice" 347

Part V The Bolshevik State

1 Nature of the Bolshevik State 355

2 Situation of the Workers 359

3 Situation of the Peasants 367

4 Situation of the Functionaries 377

5 Political Structure 381

6 General View 387

7 Achievements 391

8 Counter-Revolution 421

Book III Struggles For The Real Social Revolution

Foreword 437

Part I Kronstadt (1921)

1 Geographical Notes 441

2 Kronstadt Before the Revolution 443

3 Kronstadt as the Vanguard of the Revolution 447

4 Kronstadt Turns Against the Bolshevik Imposture 459

5 Last Act: The End of Independence 521

Part II Ukraine (1318-1921)

1 Mass Movement in the Ukraine 541

2 Formation of the Makhnovist Insurrectionary Army 563

3 Denikin's Offensives and Final Defeat 579

4 The Makhnovists in the Liberated Regions 627

5 Wrangel's Offensive and Defeat 657

6 Third and Last War of the Bolsheviks Against the Makhnovists and Anarchists; Defeat of the Insurrectionary Army 667

7 The Fate of Makhno and Some of His Comrades; Epilogue 687

8 Testament of the Makhnovshchina to the Workers of the World 711

Appendix I Voline Meets Trotsky in April 1917 713

Appendix II A Bibliographical Sketch 716

Appendix III Russian Revolutionary Parties 717

Appendix IV The Structure of the Soviet State 721

Index 725

About The Authors 730

Editorial Reviews

A fascinating and valuable book—a combination of history, eyewitness account, and partisan advocacy—about the Russian revolution of 1917–21.”
—Stephen F. Cohen, author of Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution

“In rich detail Voline documents the efforts of workers, peasants, and intellectuals to inaugurate a free society based on local initiative and autonomy.… It should be read by every person interested in the anarchist movement and the Russian Revolution.”
—Paul Avrich, author of The Russian Anarchists

“The uniqueness of his work consists not only in the events that the author has selected for analysis but also in the anarchist point of view. Neither would be found in Soviet or Western academic literature of the Revolution.”
—Choice

“One of the most coherent and comprehensive personal accounts of the Russian Revolution, of the nature of the Bolshevik State from its birth in 1917 through to its suppression of both the Kronstadt uprising of 1921 and of the Makhnovist peasant movement in the Ukraine between 1918 and 1921.”
—Stuart Christie, author of Granny Made Me an Anarchist

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