The month of October 1917 is a great historical watershed in the Russian revolution. That watershed consists of the awakening of the toilers of town and country to their right to seize control of their own lives and their social and economic inheritance; the cultivation of the soil, the housing, the factories, the mines, transportation, and lastly the education which had hitherto been used to strip our ancestors of all these assets. However, as we see it, it would be wide of the mark if we were to see all of the content of the Russian revolution encapsulated in October: in fact, the Russian revolution was hatched over the preceding months, a period during which the peasants in the countryside and the workers in the towns grasped the essenti... (From : NestorMakhno.info.)
CHAPTER X THE BRITISH LABOR MISSION I WAS glad to learn that Angelica Balabanova arrived in Petrograd to prepare quarters for the British Labor Mission. During my stay in Moscow I had come to know and appreciate the fine spirit of Angelica. She was very devoted to me and when I fell ill she gave much time to my care, procured medicine which could be obtained only in the Kremlin drug store, and got special sick rations for me. Her friendship was generous and touching, and she endeared herself very much to me. The Narishkin Palace was to be prepared for the Mission, and Angelica invited me to accompany her there. I noticed that she looked more worn and distressed than when I had seen her in Moscow. Our conversation made it clear to me that she suffered keenly from the reality which was so unlike her ideal. But she insisted that what seemed failure to me was conditioned in life itself, itself the greatest failure. Narishkin Palace is situa...
My Further Disillusionment in Russia By Emma Goldman Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & company; 1924 PREFACE The annals of literature tell of books expurgated, of whole chapters eliminated or changed beyond recognition. But I believe it has rarely happened that a work should be published with more than a third of it left out and-without the reviewers being aware of the fact. This doubtful distinction has fallen to the lot of my work on Russia. The story of that painful experience might well make another chapter, but for the present it is sufficient to give the bare facts of the case. My manuscript was sent to the original purchaser in two parts, at different times. Subsequently the publishing house of Doubleday, Page & Co. bought the rights to my work, but when the first printed copies reached me I discovered to my dismay that not only had my original title, "My Two Years in Russia," been changed to "My Disillusionment in...
Part II. Ukraine (1918–1921) Chapter 1. Mass Movement in the Ukraine This chapter puts me in a quandary. If I devoted a hundred or so pages to the Kronstadt movement, a proper treatment of the events in the Ukraine would require at least five times as much space, in view of their scope, their duration, and above all their revolutionary and moral importance. But this is impossible. Besides, my documentation on this movement is limited to the outstanding work of Peter Arshinov: History of the Makhnovist Movement. And in my present circumstances I cannot complete Arshinov’s work. On the other hand, filling pages with documents that have already been published — even if we take into account their specific character and the bibliographical rarity of the work — seems exaggerated. I can obviously enrich the study with two important elements: certain facts set forth in volumes II and III of th...