The Anarchists in Russia

Victor-Serge (Kibalchich), one of the best known anarchist individualist militants, who rallied to communism during the proletarian revolution, addressed a letter to his anarchist comrades in France which they refused to publish. We reproduce it here according to our confrere the Soviet, which published the complete text.

To the comrades of Le Libertaire, the Fédération Anarchiste, and anarchist militants of various tendencies

AUGUST 30, 1920

Dear Comrades,

During my eighteen months in Moscow and Petrograd I greatly deplored the absolute impossibility of my corresponding with you. Several times I tried to send you brief letters by whatever means I could, but I have reason to believe they never reached you.

I finally have the opportunity to write you today, and I have so many things to tell you, important things related to our ideas and action, that I feel a great embarrassment.

This letter will thus be a bit disjointed and incomplete, but I hope it will soon be possible for us to correspond more or less regularly. And I place myself at your complete disposal to provide you with information, to answer all your questions, to provide you with all the documents you would like to have concerning the situation in Russia.

In France I was primarily active in anarchist individualist groups, but this is addressed to all the anarchist and communist comrades in France. Each tendency has its role; in the movement, each represents a facet of our truth, which is libertarian life or the aspiration for it. And I believe that among ourselves, even when at times we find ourselves adversaries, we can remain comrades and fraternally assist each other in the search for truth.

Expelled from France, released from a concentration camp, I arrived in Russia—escorted by Senegalais as far as Finland and from there by white executioners—in the winter of 1919. I’ve already lived there for two winters, which were horrible. The blockade, foreign and civil war falling fiercely on this poor, exhausted country, where only a tiny minority of revolutionaries stood firm despite it all, this is the at times atrocious reality that I saw. I saw the population of Petrograd hold out with rations of 100 grams of black bread per day, plus a few dried fish per month in the heart of winter at a time when homes had no heat, no light, no water, naturally, and no toilets. Finland threatened us, Estonia attacked us, intellectuals sabotaged or conspired, the petite bourgeoisie every day hoped that tomorrow would bring the collapse and massacre of the Bolsheviks, officers and engineers of the Red Army betrayed us, and wherever the fighting was going on the Whites took no prisoners. There was the systematic slaughter of Jews, communists, and often of workers. All of the conscious working class and revolutionary forces being at the front, industry, which was in any case lacking in primary materials and combustibles, lay idle. I don’t know how these things should be written about, for the reality of it was frightful. Any revolutionary who lived through this survived a test. For him, ideas will henceforth have a more profound meaning than they previously did.

It was during the first winter that, seeing that in all of the immense Russia there was only one force—one heroic and unshakable—alive and capable of defending the revolution at a time when no one saw clearly and even many old militants despaired, I thought it was my duty to rally to it, and I joined the Russian Communist Party as an anarchist, without in any way abdicating my ideas, except for what was utopian about it in contact with reality.

I soon realized that this attitude imposed real sacrifices on me from the point of view of my freedom of individual action, and important concessions on principles. With complete clarity of mind I still to consent to this. Sacrifices and concessions are imposed on the anarchist militant (if he joins the CP or not) not before a doctrine or an organization, but in the face of the revolution itself, whose interests are the supreme law. For the revolution it’s a question strictly of living and winning. Our personalities and individual ideas don’t weigh much in the balance, and the revolutionary must have the stoicism required to acknowledge this. Those comrades who’ve gone to Russia and saw what is happening there will surely understand or approve me.

I summarized, in a study I’m sending you with this same post and which I request you publish, my understanding of the revolutionary experience from an anarchist point of view. These pages are too brief and incomplete, but such as they are I hope they will serve as the basis for useful discussion. The ideas I lay out there are obviously personal, but as a whole are in agreement with those of a great number of anarchists. To be precise I will name among the comrades who have joined the Russian CP: Alfa (of Borevestnik, etc.), Krasnostchekov (currently president of the Far Eastern Republic), Novomirsky, Bianchi (former secretary of the Union of Russian Workers of America), and among those active outside the CP the group from Golos Truda, the Anarchist-Universalist group of Moscow, and comrades Shapiro, Rochtchin, William Shatov, Alexander Ghe, and Vietrov, to name only the well-known militants.

As I briefly explain in the articles in question, most Russian anarchists nevertheless occupy a position that is more or less hostile to the Communist Party, which they have sometimes been in conflict with. Nevertheless, the immense majority of them are Sovietist and consider that any action that would result in disuniting the revolutionary forces would be harmful at the present time. They believe that even criticism will only be fruitful when the existence of the Russia of the Soviets will no longer be in immediate danger. This point of view, in fact, is that of Kropotkin, who lives not far from Moscow in the small town of Dmiterievo, where he devotes himself to major projects (a book on anarchist ethics), and that of comrades Karelin and the brothers Gordin, etc.

In Ukraine the conflict between anarchists and Bolsheviks has taken on a character that is often tragic and has ended in an armed fight. Comrade Voline (Eichenbaum), who lived for a long time in Paris, and who is at present imprisoned in Moscow, was the initiator of a powerful and active libertarian communist movement but which in the chaos of the civil war in Ukraine collided with the vast authoritarian-communist organization and was smashed. I don’t know very much about the facts in this case. I do know that on both sides there were occasionally bloody excesses and that both sides demonstrated intolerance and ferocity. The rebellious peasants, led by an anarchist (Makhno), occupied entire provinces of Ukraine. Unfortunately, the anarchists in these regions didn’t know how to avoid resorting to authority, violence, terror, and the abuses that necessarily flow from all this. In the battle that was engaged between these groups and the Communist Party people were executed on both sides. This distressing fight has had repercussions in Moscow itself.

I think it should none of this should cause us to lose sight of the higher interests of the revolution. As far as I have been informed, the Ukrainian anarchists have themselves avoided none of the errors for which they reproach the Bolsheviks. I have no doubt that had their movement been able to develop without hindrance it would have produced noble fruits and that this would have been infinitely fortunate and useful. But when it comes to making war I can’t help but consider Trotsky a better organizer than Makhno, and the Red Army as a weapon to which the bands of Ukrainian partizans—who are often heroic—can in no way be compared. The Ukrainian partizans speculated on the spirit of small land-ownership of the peasants, on their nationalism, even on anti-Semitism, all of which had dreadful consequences.

In general, it seems to me that the lack of a practical program for action—their utopianism—and their lack of organization have killed the anarchist movement in Russia which has expended a prodigious amount of energy in service to the revolution. Among the comrades fallen at the front last year I will mention Anatole Yelazniakov and Justin Zhouk.

At the present time I see no possibility for a vast anarchist movement in Russia. The harsh needs of the revolution leave us no choice as to means. Everything they imposed was done by the Communist Party, who one must be with under penalty of being against it and with reaction. As soon as peace is made, as soon as we can seriously set to work on the task of social reorganization, I am sure that the anarchist spirit will be powerful in Russia. And I even think that among the most conscious and tested communists it will find its most living expression.

Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, expelled from America, have been in Russia since last December. At present they are carrying out a long trip in Ukraine for the Petrograd Museum of the Revolution. The sixteen years he spent in prison haven’t caused Berkman to lose his moral vigor.

Allow me now, comrades, to speak about the French movement and the situation in France. A few months ago I had the opportunity to, by chance, receive five or six issues of Le Libertaire. They were interesting, to be sure, but they could easily have been published in 1912, that is, before the war and the Russian Revolution. I have the impression that the anarchists in France have not yet carried out the necessary revision of their ideas in the face of these historic experiences and limit themselves to preserving anarchist traditions. Under these conditions it seems that some sooner or later risk, in becoming communists, ceasing to be anarchists (and I see a great danger in this); while others, lacking a clear understanding of the revolution, remain without influence and at times will be saddened to see that through force of circumstance they are neighbors of Bourtzev and Hervé.

In order to correctly pose the great questions vital for the entire revolutionary world it is important before all else that you be informed of the Russian experience, that you enter into contact with the social revolution accomplished here. This can only be correctly done in one way: send us good militants who’ll work here for a time. And try to remain in contact.

There is something stupefying in the indifference of the French masses at a moment when events of an unimaginable import are taking place. The enthusiasm nevertheless inspired by the Russian Revolution among the working-class elite could very well, if you don’t intervene, be channeled, used, led astray by “socialist” or CGT politicians. The habits of inaction that they will eloquently sustain may hold back for a few more years the issue of the fight in Russia. It is certainly not possible for you to imagine what terrible repercussions your failures might have on the revolution. Remember that it was the failure of the general strike of July 21 in France that allowed the strangling of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and the coming of White Terror. The Polish aggression, which also delays peace for the Russian Revolution would perhaps not have happened if the French workers had truly demonstrated revolutionary will and vetoed the intrigues of the Quai d’Orsay. Know, comrades, that as long as you remain inactive blood will flow here daily, and we won’t be able to begin the task of organization and liberation desired by all sincere communists, be they Marxist or anarchist.

Everything that could humanly be done for the triumph of the social revolution has been done in Russia, despite the errors and sometimes despite the crimes inevitable in the course of such social turbulence. Hunger, cold, daily worries, horrific material, and moral misfortunes, the deaths of the weakest, the terror, daily sacrifices, revolutionary Russia has consented to all of them. This fact alone imposes great obligations on those foreign militants who understand this.

Fraternally,

Victor Serge

August 30, 1920

(Bulletin Communiste, 4 [second year] January 27, 1921)