The Russian Civil War was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the overthrowing of the social-democratic Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. It resulted in the formation of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and later the Soviet Union in most of its territory. Its finale marked the end of the Russian Revolution, which was one of the key events of the 20th century.
Jēkabs Peterss was a Latvian Communist revolutionary who played a part in the establishment of the Soviet Union. Together with Felix Dzerzhinsky, he was one of the founders and chiefs of the Cheka, the secret police of the Soviet Russia. He was the Deputy Chairman of the Cheka from 1918 and briefly the acting Chairman of the Cheka from 7 July to 22 August 1918.
Grigorii Petrovich Maksimov was a Russian anarcho-syndicalist. From the first days of the Russian Revolution, he played a leading role in the country's syndicalist movement – editing the newspaper Golos Truda and organising the formation of factory committees. Following the October Revolution, he came into conflict with the Bolsheviks, who he fiercely criticised for their authoritarian and centralist tendencies. For his anti-Bolshevik activities, he was eventually arrested and imprisoned, before finally being deported from the country. In exile, he continued to lead the anarcho-syndicalist movement, spearheading the establishment of the International Workers' Association (IWA), of which he was a member until his death.
Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum, commonly known by his pseudonym Volin, was a Russian anarchist intellectual. He became involved in revolutionary socialist politics during the 1905 Russian Revolution, for which he was forced into exile, where he gravitated towards anarcho-syndicalism.
Fanya Anisimovna Baron was a Russian Jewish anarchist revolutionary. She spent her early life participating in the Chicago workers' movement, but following the Russian Revolution in 1917, she moved to Ukraine and participated in the Makhnovist movement. For her anarchist activities, she was arrested and executed by the Cheka.
The Left SR uprising, or Left SR revolt, was a rebellion against the Bolsheviks by the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party in Moscow, Soviet Russia, on 6–7 July 1918. It was one of a number of left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks that took place during the Russian Civil War.
Anarchism in Ukraine has its roots in the democratic and egalitarian organization of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, who inhabited the region up until the 18th century. Philosophical anarchism first emerged from the radical movement during the Ukrainian national revival, finding a literary expression in the works of Mykhailo Drahomanov, who was himself inspired by the libertarian socialism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The spread of populist ideas by the Narodniks also lay the groundwork for the adoption of anarchism by Ukraine's working classes, gaining notable circulation in the Jewish communities of the Pale of Settlement.
Anarchism in Russia developed out of the populist and nihilist movements' dissatisfaction with the government reforms of the time.
Alexander "Sanya" Moiseyevich Schapiro or Shapiro was a Russian anarcho-syndicalist activist. Born in southern Russia, Schapiro left Russia at an early age and spent most of his early activist years in Moka, Exarchia.
Golos Truda was a Russian-language anarchist newspaper. Founded by working-class Russian expatriates in New York City in 1911, Golos Truda shifted to Petrograd during the Russian Revolution in 1917, when its editors took advantage of the general amnesty and right of return for political dissidents. There, the paper integrated itself into the anarchist labour movement, pronounced the necessity of a social revolution of and by the workers, and situated itself in opposition to the myriad of other left-wing movements.
The Nabat Confederation of Anarchist Organizations, better known simply as the Nabat, was a Ukrainian anarchist organization that came to prominence during the Ukrainian War of Independence. The organization, based in Kharkiv, had branches in all of Ukraine's major cities. Its constitution was designed to be appealing to each of the different anarchist schools of thought.
Aron Davydovych Baron was a Ukrainian Jewish anarchist revolutionary. Following the suppression of the 1905 Revolution, he fled to the United States, where he met his wife Fanya Baron and participated in the local workers movement. With the outbreak of the 1917 Revolution, he returned to Ukraine, where he became a leading figure in the Nabat and in the Makhnovshchina. He was imprisoned by the Cheka for his anarchist activities and was executed during the Great Purge.
The Kronstadt rebellion was a 1921 insurrection of Soviet sailors, naval infantry, and civilians against the Bolshevik government in the Russian port city of Kronstadt. Located on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland, Kronstadt defended the former capital city, Petrograd, as the base of the Baltic Fleet. For sixteen days in March 1921, rebels in Kronstadt's naval fortress rose in opposition to the Soviet government which they had helped to consolidate. Led by Stepan Petrichenko, it was the last major revolt against Bolshevik rule on Russian territory during the Russian Civil War.
Burevestnik was a newspaper published daily from Petrograd, Russia. Burevestnik was the organ of the Petrograd Federation of Anarchist Groups. The newspaper was founded in November 1917. Burevestnik was primarily distributed in Vyborg district, Kronstadt, Kolpino and Obukhovo. It had a readership of around 25,000. This newspaper was one of several publications with the name Burevestnik, a name originating in Maxim Gorky's poem Song of the Stormy Petrel.
Soviet democracy, also called council democracy, is a type of democracy in Marxism, in which the rule of a population is exercised by directly elected soviets. Soviets are directly responsible to their electors and bound by their instructions using a delegate model of representation. Such an imperative mandate is in contrast to a trustee model, in which elected delegates are exclusively responsible to their conscience. Delegates may accordingly be dismissed from their post at any time through recall elections. Soviet democracy forms the basis for the soviet republic system of government.
German Karlovich Askarov (1882–1935) was a Polish-Jewish anarchist communist. First exposed to anarchist communist ideas during his studies in Ukraine, he was arrested and imprisoned for his activism during the Russian Revolution of 1905. He then spent some years editing newspapers in exile in France, where he adopted an anti-syndicalist position. He moved to Moscow following the February Revolution of 1917 and joined the Moscow Federation of Anarchist Groups, editing its newspaper Anarkhiia before its suppression by the Bolsheviks.
Anatoli Grigorievich Zhelezniakov (1895–1919) was a Russian anarchist and revolutionary best known for dispersing the short-lived Russian Constituent Assembly on Bolshevik orders during the October Revolution.
The Universalists were a Russian anarcho-communist organization established in 1920 to support the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. After a period of growth, the organization split and was eventually suppressed in the wake of the Kronstadt rebellion.
Aleksandr Yulievich Ge (1879–1919) was a Russian anarchist politician. An activist from an early age, he became an anarchist communist during the 1905 Revolution and fled to Switzerland for his revolutionary activities. In exile, he became a vocal proponent of the internationalist position during World War I, before returning to Russia with the outbreak of the 1917 Revolution. There he was elected to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and challenged a number of Bolshevik policies, particularly the ratification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the political repression of Russian anarchists. He then moved to the North Caucasus, where he was appointed as chairman of the local Cheka and participated in the region's defence against the White movement, for which he was eventually killed.
Efim Zakharovych Yarchuk was a Ukrainian Jewish anarcho-syndicalist. A partisan of the Black Banner organisation during the Russian Revolution of 1905, he was exiled to Siberia and then emigrated to the United States, where he joined the Union of Russian Workers. In the wake of the February Revolution of 1917, he returned from exile and took up the leadership of the anarchist movement on the island of Kronstadt, leading local soldiers during the July Days and the October Revolution.
