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Anarchism in Russia

Anarchism in Russia developed out of the populist and nihilist movements' dissatisfaction with the government reforms of the time.

The first Russian to identify himself as an anarchist was the revolutionary socialist Mikhail Bakunin, who became a founding figure of the modern anarchist movement within the International Workingmen's Association (IWA). In the context of the split within the IWA between the Marxists and the anarchists, the Russian Land and Liberty organization also split between a Marxist faction that supported political struggle and an anarchist faction that supported "propaganda of the deed", the latter of which went on to orchestrate the assassination of Alexander II.


Specifically anarchist groups such as the Black Banner began to emerge at the turn of the 20th century, culminating with the anarchist participation in the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917. Though initially supportive of the Bolsheviks, many anarchists turned against them in the wake of the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, launching a "Third Revolution" against the government with the intention of restoring soviet democracy. But this attempted revolution was crushed by 1921, definitively ending with the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion and the defeat of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine.


The anarchist movement lived on during the time of the Soviet Union in small pockets, largely within the Gulag where anarchist political prisoners were sent, but by the late 1930s its old guard had either fled into exile, died or disappeared during the Great Purge. Following a number of uprisings in the wake of the death of Stalin, libertarian communism began to reconstitute itself within the dissident human rights movement, and by the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the anarchist movement had re-emerged onto the public sphere. In the modern day, anarchists make up a part of the opposition movement to the government of Vladimir Putin.

(1876–1879)

Land and Liberty

(1879–1887)

People's Will

(1903–?)

Chernoe Znamia

(1917–1918)

Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups

(1917–1919)

Black Guards

(1920–1921)

Universalists

Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (1988–1995)

Siberian Confederation of Labour (1995–present)

(1995–present)

Confederation of Revolutionary Anarcho-Syndicalists

(1996–2000)

New Revolutionary Alternative

(2002–present)

Autonomous Action

(2013–present)

People's Self-Defense

(2018–present)

Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists

Anarchism in Belarus

Anarchism in Ukraine

History of communism in the Soviet Union

Kronstadt rebellion

Makhnovshchina

Platformism

Iztok (1980). . Iztok: Periodično spisanie (1). Paris: Les Amitiés franco-bulgares. ISSN 0816-8172. OCLC 664426218.

"On anarchism in the USSR (1921–1979)"

Goldberg, Joel Harold (1973). (PhD). Madison: University of Wisconsin. OCLC 36688081.

The Anarchists View the Bolshevik Regime, 1918–1922

Goodwin, James (2010). . Peter Lang. p. 48. ISBN 978-1-4331-0883-9.

Confronting Dostoevsky's Demons: Anarchism and the Specter of Bakunin in Twentieth-century Russia

Grossman, Henryk (30 November 2020). . BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-43211-6.

Henryk Grossman Works, Volume 2: Political Writings

McClellan, Woodford (1979). . Cass. ISBN 0-203-98802-7. OCLC 243606265. Retrieved 11 September 2021.

Revolutionary exiles: the Russians in the First International and the Paris Commune

McNeal, Robert (1974). Resolutions and decisions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.  0-8020-2157-3. OCLC 1189903.

ISBN

Ruff, Philip (1991). . London: AK Press. ISBN 9781872258065. OCLC 36919582. Archived from the original on 2021-08-09. Retrieved 2021-08-09.

Anarchy in the USSR

(2007a) [1974]. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol. 1. Translated by Whitney, Thomas P. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0061253713.

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr

(2007b) [1974]. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol. 2. Translated by Whitney, Thomas P. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0061253720.

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr

(2007c) [1974]. The Gulag Archipelago. Vol. 3. Translated by Whitney, Thomas P. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0061253737.

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr

(1990). Statism and Anarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36973-8.

Bakunin, Mikhail

(2010). The Tragic Procession: Alexander Berkman and Russian Prisoner Aid. London and Berkeley: Kate Sharpley Library and Alexander Berkman Social Club. ISBN 978-1-873605-90-5.

Berkman, Alexander

(1980). Bakunin on Anarchism. Montréal: Black Rose Books. ISBN 0-919619-06-1.

Dolgoff, Sam

(1955) [1947]. The Unknown Revolution. Translated by Cantine, Holley. New York: Libertarian Book Club. ISBN 0919618251. OCLC 792898216.

Eichenbaum, Vsevolod Mikhailovich

(1909). The Terror in Russia. London: Methuen. OCLC 65565363.

Kropotkin, Peter

(1954) [1906/1907]. "November 1901 - April 1907". Anarchism or Socialism?. Collected Works. Vol. 1. Foreign Languages Publishing House. OCLC 500187899.

Stalin, Joseph

(1883). Underground Russia. London: Smith, Elder & Co. OCLC 1068607124. Archived from the original on 24 September 2011.

Stepniak, Sergei

(1899) [1877]. What Is to Be Done?. New York: Crowell. ISBN 143449425X. OCLC 320522431.

Tolstoy, Leo

. History of Anarchism in Russia. London: Lawrence & Wishart. OCLC 933005779.

Yaroslavsky, Yemelyan

entry at the Anarchy Archives

History of Anarchism in Russia

. Spunk Library.

"Russian anarchism"

Archived 2013-07-20 at the Wayback Machine

Black Bloc

Archived 2009-09-14 at the Wayback Machine (1921–1953) from Libcom.org

A chronology of Russian anarchism

from the Kate Sharpley Library

Articles on Bolshevik repression of anarchists after 1917

Interview with Mikhail Tsovma

Anarchism in Russia