Life of an Anarchist by Alexander Berkman

Life of an Anarchist by Alexander Berkman

Author:Alexander Berkman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2010-06-27T16:00:00+00:00


Despite the signs that the Russian Revolution was heading toward a future diametrically opposed to the ideals that inspired it, Berkman—on hearing of the “Red Scare” in the United States and the mass arrests of alleged Communists there—wrote “I feel that Russia is still the hearth of the Revolution.” But his faith was continually battered by reality. On May Day there was a mass demonstration, but it was completely apathetic, as was a huge march organized by the Petrograd Soviet of Labor Unions for which every factory was “ordered to send a contingent.” When the British Labor Museum sent a delegation to Russia, Berkman noted that wherever they went the Tcheka was present and “not a bedraggled workman or filthy beggar was in sight.” Bertrand Russell, who accompanied the British delegation, remarked, “I feel like a prisoner, every step watched.” Meanwhile, 45 anarchists in prison began a hunger strike protesting prison conditions and the fact that they had not been charged with a crime despite their lengthy stay behind bars. Berkman was asked to help settle the strike, but it ended unsatisfactorily with only 10 of the anarchists released. Berkman was asked by the Bolshevik government to translate Lenin’s essay “The Infantile Sickness of Leftism” for the British Museum delegation, but he refused to do so unless allowed to write a preface to it, since the essay was opposed to all the ideals Berkman held dear. From this point on he was given a cold shoulder by Bolshevik officialdom. He and Emma were asked to join the expedition of the Museum of the Revolution to collect historical material about the revolutionary movement, and they agreed to do so since they were not permitted to do more “political” work. The group traveled to the Ukraine. There Berkman saw fear, starvation, and chaos everywhere. Berkman wrote of the Ukranians, “They dislike the ‘Russians’ and resent the domination of Moscow. Antagonism of the Bolsheviki is general, the hatred of the Tcheka universal.” He heard stories of shootings and torture by Red and White factions and about the repression of intellectuals. In the following excerpt, from Chapter 22, “First Days in Kharkov,” Berkman visited with friends of the anti-Bolshevik revolutionary Maria Spiridonova.



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