Syndicalism In The Russian Revolution.

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SYNDICALISTS
IN THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION

by G. P. Maximoff

“ Discussing the activities and role of the Anarchists in the
Revolution , Kropotkin said: *We Anarchists have talked much of
revolutions , but few of us have been prepared for the actual work
to be done during the process . / have indicated some things in
this relation in my Conquest of Bread. Pouget and Pataud have
also sketched a line of action in their work on Syndicalism and the
Co-operative Commonwealth.

Kropotkin thought that the Anarchists had not given sufficient
consideration to the fundamental elements of the social revolution.
The real facts in a revolutionary process do not consist so much
in the actual fighting — that is , merely the destructive phase
necessary to clear the way for constructive effort. The basic factor
in a revolution is the organisation of the economic life of the
country . The Russian Revolution had proved conclusively that
we must prepare thoroughly for that. Everything else is of minor
importance . He had come to think that Syndicalism was likely to
furnish what Russia most lacked: the channel through which the
industrial and economic reconstruction of the country may flow.
He referred to Anarcho-Syndicalism. That and the co-operatives
would save other countries some of the blunders and suffering
Russia was going through.”

EMMA GOLDMAN, ‘My Disillusionment in Russia’,
on a visit to Peter Kropotkin at Dimitrov, July 1920.

Syndicalists in the
Russian Revolution

T HE Revolution shook all classes and strata of Russian social
life. A vast unrest had permeated all levels of Russian
society as a result of three centuries of oppression by the
Tsarist regime.

During the revolutionary explosion, this unrest became the
force which cemented the heterogeneous elements into a powerful
united front, and which annihilated the edifice of despotism within
three days, a brief revolutionary period, unprecedented in history.

Within this movement, despite the fact that its component forces
were actuated by different, and often mutually exclusive tasks and
purposes, reigned full unanimity. At the moment of revolutionary
explosion the aims of those various forces happened to coincide,
since they were negative in character, being directed at annihilating
the superannuated absolutist regime. The constructive aims were
not yet clear. It was only during the further course of develop-
ment, through the differing constructions placed on the aims and
tasks of the revolution, that the hitherto amorphous forces began
to crystallise and a struggle arose among them for the triumph
of their ideas and objectives.

It is a noteworthy feature of the revolution that despite the
rather small influence of Anarchists on the masses before its out-
break, it followed from its inception the anarchistic course of
full decentralisation; the revolutionary bodies immediately pushed
to the front by the course of revolution were Anarcho-Syndicalist
in their essential character. These were of the kind which lend
themselves as adequate instruments for the quickest realisation
of the Anarchist ideal — Soviets, Factory Committees, peasant
land committees and house committees, etc. The inner logic of
the development and growth of such organisations led in November
(October) 1917 to the temporary extinction of the State and the
sweeping away of the foundations of capitalist economy.

I say temporarily, for in the long run the State and capitalism
came to triumph; the logical development of the revolution having
been openly frustrated by those who at first were instrumental in
accelerating its course of development. Unchecked by the too-
trustful masses, whose aims and course of action, though felt
instinctively, were still far from being clearly realised, the Bolshe-
viks, to the extent that they gained the confidence of those masses,
gradually enveloped the revolution with the chilling atmosphere

3

of State dominance and brute force, thus dooming it to an inevit-
able process of decay. This process, however, became noticeable
only six months after the “October revolution”. Up to that
moment the revolution kept on ripening. The struggle became
sharper and the objectives began to assume an ever clearer
and more outspoken character. The country seethed and bubbled
over, living a full life under conditions of freedom.

Grand struggle

The struggle of classes, groups and parties for preponderant
influence in the revolution was intense, powerful and striking in
character. As a result of this struggle there resulted a sort of
stalemate of forces; none was in a position to command superiority
in relation to the rest. This in turn made it impossible for the
State and government — the external force standing above society
-Mo become the instrument of one of the contending forces. The
State, therefore, was paralysed, not being able to exert its negative
influence on the course of events, the more so in that the army,
due to its active part in the movement, ceased to be an obedient
instrument of State power. In this grand struggle of interests
and ideas the Anarchists took an active and lively part.

The period from March (February) to November (October)
1917, was in its sweep and scope a most resplendent one for
Anarcho-Syndicalist and Anarchist work, that is for propaganda,
agitation, organisation and action.

The revolution opened wide the door to Anarchist emigres
returning from various countries, where they had fled to escape
the ferocious persecution of the Tsar’s government. But even
before the emigres’ return there arose, with the active participation
of comrades released from prison and exile, groups and unions
of Anarchists, as well as Anarchist publications. With the return
of the Anarchists from abroad, this work began to pick up con-
siderable momentum. Russia was covered with a thick, albeit
too loosely connected, net of groups. Scarcely a sizeable city
did not have an Anarcho-Syndicalist or Anarchist group. The
propaganda took dimensions unprecedented for Anarchist activity
in Russia. Proportionately, there was a great number of Anarchist
newspapers, magazines, leaflets, pamphlets and books. The book
market was flooded with Anarchist literature. The interest in
Anarcho-Syndicalism and Anarchism was enormous, reaching
even the remote corners of the faraway North.

Newspapers were published not only in the large administrative
and industrial centres, like Moscow and Petrograd, which had

4

several Anarchist newspapers (in Petrograd the circulation of the
Anarcho-Syndicalist Golos Trouda and the Anarchist Burevestnik
was 25,000 each; the Moscow daily Anarchia had about the same
circulation), but also in provincial cities, like Kronstadt, Yaroslavl,
Nizhni-Novgorod, Saratov, Samara, Krasnoyarsk, Vladivostok,
Rostov on Don, Odessa and Kiev. (In 1918, Anarchist papers
were coming out in Ivanovo-Vosnesensk, Chembar, Ekaterinburg,
Kursk, Ekaterinoslav, Viatka.)

Oral propaganda was even more extensive than written — it
was carried out in the army, as well as in factories and villages.
The propaganda stressed the central task of bringing out and
carrying to their logical end the Anarchist principles and tendencies
inherent in the revolution. This propaganda, Anarcho-Syndicalist
propaganda especially, was very successful with the toilers. The
influence of Anarchism, especially its Anarcho-Syndicalist variety,
was so great with the Petrograd workers that the Social-Democrats
were compelled to issue a special publication for the purpose of
waging a struggle against “Anarcho-Syndicalism among the organ-
ised proletariat.” Unfortunately, this influence was not organised.

Centralism via federalism’

The influence of Anarcho-Syndicalism showed itself creditably
in the struggle for supremacy waged by the Factory Committees
against the trade unions. The Factory Committees were almost
completely swayed by a unique sort of Anarcho-Syndicalism; this
is attested by all the conferences of the Petrograd Factory Com-
mittees, and by the All-Russian conferences of these committees.
Moreover, the Bolsheviks in their drive towards seizure of power
and dictatorship, were forced to cast away (for the time being
only, as subsequent events proved), their orthodox Marxism and
to accept Anarchist slogans and methods. Alas, this was but a
tactical move on their part, not a genuine change of programme.

The slogans formulated by the Bolsheviks (Communists) voiced,
in a precise and intelligible manner, the demands of the masses
in revolt, coinciding with the slogans of the Anarchists: “Down
with the war,” “Immediate peace without annexations or indemni-
ties, over the heads of the governments and capitalists,” “Abolition
cf the army,” “Arming of the workers,” “Immediate seizure of
land by the peasants,” “Seizure of factories by the workers,” “A
Federation of Soviets,” etc. Wouldn’t the realisation of these
great slogans lead to the full triumph of Anarchist ideology, to
the sweeping away of the basis and foundations of Marxism?
Wasn’t it natural for the Anarchists to be taken in by these slogans,
considering that they lacked a strong organisation to carry them

5

out independently? Consequently, they continued taking part in
the joint struggle.

But reality soon proved that all the lapses by the Bolsheviks
from the revolutionary position were no casual things, but moves
in a rigorously thought-out tactical plan, directed against the vital
interests and demands of the masses — a plan designed to carry
out in life the dead dogmas of a disintegrated Marxism. The true
face of the Bolsheviks was revealed by the Commissar of National
Affairs — Stalin (Dzhugashvili), who in one of his articles (April
1918) wrote that their aim is, “To arrive at centralism via federal-
ism.” Persistently, cautiously, the revolution was being forced
into Marxist channels in accordance with a preconceived plan.
Such a channel is for every popular creed a Procrustean bed.

Thus, during the period of the Bourgeois and Bourgeois-
Socialist Government, the Anarchists worked (not organisationally
of course) hand-in-hand with the Bolsheviks. How were the
Anarchists situated during that period? The listing of the cities
where Anarchist publications came out shows that freedom of the
press was of the most extensive kind. Not a single newspaper
was closed, not a single leaflet, pamphlet or book confiscated, not
a single rally or mass meeting forbidden. Despite the seizure of
rich private houses, like the Durnovo Villa and other mansions
in Petrograd; despite the seizure of printing shops, including the
printing shop of Russkaya Volia, published by the Tsar’s minister
Protopopov; despite open incitement to insubordination and
appeals for soldiers to leave the fronts; despite all that, only a
few cases where Anarchists were manhandled might be construed
as connivance by authorities, or premeditated acts. True, the
government, at that period, was not averse to dealing severely
with both Anarchists and Bolsheviks. Kerensky threatened many
times to “bum them out with red-hot irons”. But the government
was powerless, because the revolution was in full swing.

After October

How did the position of the Anarchists change with the triumph
of the October revolution, in the preparation and making of
which they had taken such a prominent part? It has to be
pointed out that during the Kerensky period the Anarchists had
grown considerably and that towards the October days their move-
ment had already assumed considerable proportions. This growth
became even more accelerated after the October revolution, when
the Anarchists took an active part in the direct struggle against
both the counter-revolution and the German-Austrian troops.
Not only did the voice of the Anarchists command attention, but

6

the masses actually followed the appeals and directives of the
Anarchists, having come to see in them the concrete formulation
of their age-long aspirations. That is why they backed demands
of an Anarcho-Syndicalist character, carrying them out in the
teeth of hamstringing efforts, rather feeble at that time, by the
Bolsheviks.

Under the influence of Anarcho-Syndicalist propaganda, there
began in Petrograd a spontaneous process of socialisation of
housing by the house committees. This extended to entire streets,
bringing into existence street committees and block committees,
when entire blocks were drawn in. It spread to other cities. In
Kronstadt it started even earlier than Petrograd and reached even
greater intensity. If in Petrograd and other cities, dwellings were
socialised only on the triumph of the October revolution, in
Kronstadt similar steps were taken earlier, under the influence of
Yartchuk, who was enjoying great popularity in that town, and
in face of the active resistance of the Bolsheviks. Measures of
this kind were carried out in an organised way by the revolutionary
workers and sailors throughout the town. The Bolshevik fraction
left a session of the Kronstadt Soviet in protest against the
socialisation of dwellings.

Workers’ Control

In the field of revolutionary struggle towards immediate aboli-
tion of the institution of private property in the means of produc-
tion, the influence of the Anarchists was even more pronounced.
The idea of “workers’ control”, carried out through the Factory
Committees, an idea advocated by the Anarcho-Syndicalists from
the very outset of the revolution, took root among the city workers,
gaining such a strong hold on them as to force its acceptance, in
a distorted form, of course, by the Socialist parties. The Social-
Democrats and the right Social-Revolutionists twisted this idea
of workers’ control into that of State control over industry, with
the participation of workers, leaving enterprises in the hands of
the capitalists.

As for the Bolsheviks, they were quite vague about the meaning
of the term “workers’ control”, leaving it undefined, and making
it a handy tool of demagogic propaganda. This is confirmed by
A. Lozovsky (S. A. Dridzo), who writes the following in his
pamphlet Workers' Control (Petersburg, the Socialist Publishing
House, 1918):

“Workers’ control was the fighting slogan of the Bolsheviks
before the October days . . • but despite the fact that workers
control figured in all resolutions, and was displayed on all banners,

7

it had an aura of mystery about it. The party Press wrote very
little about this slogan, still less did it try to implement it in a
concrete way. When the October revolution broke out and it
became necessary to say clearly and precisely what this workers’
control was, it developed that, even among the partisans of this
slogan, there existed great differences of opinion on that score.”
(p. 19.)

The Bolsheviks refused to accept the Anarcho-Syndicalist con-
struction of the idea of workers’ control; namely, taking control
of production, its socialisation and instituting workers’ control over
socialised production through the Factory Committees. This idea
won out, workers having begun expropriating enterprises while
the Bourgeois-Socialist government was still in power. The
Factory Committees and various control committees were already
taking over the managing functions at that time. On the eve
of the October revolution this movement assumed a truly mass
character.

Factory Committees

The Factory Committees and their Central Bureau became the
foundation of the new revolutionary movement, which set itself
the task of making the factories into Producer and Consumer
Communes. The Factory Committees were to become the nuclei
of the new social order gradually emerging from the inchoate
elemental life of the revolution. Anarchistic in their essence, the
Factory Committees made many enemies. The attitude of all
political parties was restrained hostility, their, efforts centring on
reducing the Factory Committees to a subordifiate position within
the trade unions. The Communists from the outset showed their
suspicion of this type of organisation. It was only after they had
become convinced that the trade unions were too strongly domi-
nated by the Social-Democrats to lend themselves as instruments
of Communist policy that, following the Anarcho-Syndicalists,
they began to centre their attention on the Factory Committees,
aiming to place them under their control and, through those com-
mittees, ultimately to gain control of the trade unions. Despite
this attitude, the Bolsheviks were forced by the course of events
to assume a position toward the Factory Committees which
differed little from that of the Anarcho-Syndicalists. Only
gradually did they assume this position. At first they combatted it.

“The Anarcho-Syndicalists entrenched themselves behind the
Factory Committees. They created a veritable theory around it,
saying in effect that the trade unions have died, that the future
belongs to the Factory Committees, who will deliver the knock-out
blow to capitalism, that the Factory Committees are the highest

8

form of labour movement, etc. In a word, they developed in
regard to the Factory Committees the same theory which the
French Anarcho-Syndicalists developed in regard to the trade
unions Under these conditions the divorce between the two
organisations (trade unions and Factory Committees) represents
the greatest danger for the labour movement of Russia.

“This danger is the greater, that even among active people of
the Factory Committees who are not Anarcho-Syndicalists, we
also see this tendency to oppose the trade unions to the Factory
Committees and even to replace industrial unions and their local
branches with respective organisations of the Factory Committee
type. ”_Lozovsky, Workers' Control (p. 37).

Seizure of enterprises

Characteristically, only the Anarcho-Syndicalist press correctly
evaluated the role and significance of the Factory Committees.
The first article in the revolutionary press on this problem, by
the author of these lines, appeared in the first issue of Golos
Trouda. (Incidentally, the article did not express the opinion
of Golos Trouda as a whole on this problem.) At one of the
conferences of the Factory Committees held in Petrograd, during
August 1917, the article was hotly contested by the Bolsheviks,
notably Lozovsky and others. But this idea, sound in itself and
answering the mood and needs of the workers, became dominant
even in the Bolshevik Party. Even Lenin declared in his speech
at the All-Russian Trade Union Convention (held in the spring
of 1918) that “the factory is a self-governing commune of
producers and consumers.’’

The results of this Anarcho-Syndicalist propaganda soon bore
fruit There followed a wave of seizures of enterprises and the
organisation of Workers’ Management. These began when the
provisional government was still in power and, it stands to reason,
the Anarchists played the foremost role in them. The most
talked-of event of the kind at that period was the expropriation
under the direct influence of the Anarchist Zhuk, of the Shlissel-
burg gunpowder mills and agricultural estates, both of which were
then organised on Anarchist principles. Such events recurred
ever more frequently, and on the eve of the October revolution
they came to be regarded as a matter of course.

Soon after the triumph of the October revolution, the Central
Bureau of the Factory Committees worked out extensive instruc-
tions for the control of production. These instructions proved to
be a brilliant literary document, showing the triumph of the
Anarcho-Syndicalist idea. The significance of this incident is the

9

greater considering that the Bolsheviks were then predominant
in the Factory Committees.

How greatly the workers were influenced by the idea of Factory
Committees being the executive bodies of the Factory -Communes
— the cellular bodies joining into a federative organisation, which
unites all workers and creates the necessary industrial administra-
tive system — is shown by the uneasiness the Bolsheviks revealed
after the October revolution.

“In place of a ‘Republic of Soviets’, we are led to a republic
of producers’ co-operatives (artels), into which the capitalist fac-
tories would be metamorphosed by this process. Instead of a
rapid regulation of the social production and consumption — instead
of measures which, objected to as they may be on various grounds,
do represent a genuine step toward a socialist organisation of
society — instead of that we are witnessing something which par-
takes somewhat of the Anarchist visionary dreams about autono-
mous industrial communes.” — I. Stepanov, From Workers' Control
towards Workers' Administration in the Industries and Agriculture
(Moscow, 1918, p. 11).

The predominance of the Bolsheviks makes even more remark-
able the successes achieved by our comrades, especially that of
W. Shatov, in their work carried on within the Factory Committees.
(Shatov led the attack on the Winter Palace, Petrograd, in October
1917. He left the Anarcho-Syndicalist movement and became in
fact a Bolshevik from the very moment when the capital was
moved to Moscow early in 1918. He was arrested and probably
shot without trial during the purges in the late 1930s.) Even
though dominated by the Bolsheviks, the Factory Committees of
that period were carrying out the Anarchist idea. The latter, of
course, suffered in clarity and purity when carried out by the
Bolsheviks within the Factory Committees; had the Anarchists
been in the majority they would have tried to eliminate completely
from the work of the committees the element of centralisation and
State principles.

Spontaneous Syndicalism

We are not out here to give a detailed history of the Russian
trade union movement, or a chronicle of the struggle of various
political parties and groups within the trade unions. Ours is a
purely informatory task. We want to stress those moments in
the life of the trade union movement highlighted by the work of
the Anarcho-Syndicalist minority.

The labour movement, like the revolution itself, arose spontan-
eously. It set aside trade unions, basing itself mainly on the

10

Factory Committees and their associations, especially in Petrograd.

Although the Russian proletariat was, as a whole, entirely
ignorant of the ideas of Revolutionary Syndicalism, and despite
the scarcity of Anarcho-Syndicalist literature, as well as an almost
total lack of representatives of this movement among the Russian
workers; despite all that, the labour movement of all Russia went
along the road of decentralisation. It chose spontaneously the
course of a unique Revolutionary Syndicalism. Unlike other
periods, the one following the February revolution of 1917 was
characterised by the active participation of Anarcho-Syndicalists
— workers who had returned to Russia from the United States,
where they had taken part in the struggles of the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW).

Factory Committees v trade unions

Until January 1918, that is until the First All-Russian Trade
Union Convention, the labour movement sailed under the banners
of the Factory Committees. These waged a fierce struggle against
the bourgeois elements that fought silently for supremacy, as
against the trade unions. This struggle assumed an especially
strong character after the Third All-Russian Trade Union Con-
ference, which clearly revealed the gulf between the tactics and
aims of the trade unions and those of the Factory Committees.
The latter, united first in Petrograd, then throughout Russia,
singled out their own central bodies and gave the keystone to the
course of the revolution. The Anarcho-Syndicalists took an active
part in both the Factory Committees and the trade unions. There
was no unanimity in Anarcho-Syndicalist ranks about which of
the two organisations should be preferred. The movement headed
by the author of these lines was far from being supported by the
rest of the Anarchists. It was not even accepted by the group
publishing Golos Trouda. Likewise, many Bolsheviks were averse
to the viewpoint favouring the Factory Committees as against
the trade unions. At one of the conferences of the Petrograd
Factory Committees, Lozovsky subjected this view, and the move-
ment backing it, to a cruel and unscrupulous attack.

On the whole, however, the Anarcho-Syndicalist elements showed
a preference for the Factory Committees, having concentrated their
forces in that direction. They were represented in many individual
Factory Committees, as well as in the Petrograd Bureau and the
All-Russian Central Bureau of Factory Committees. Likewise the
influence exercised by the Anarcho-Syndicalists on the work of the
conferences of the Factory Committees, whose paper, Novy Put ,
was strongly coloured with a unique kind of Anarcho-Syndicalism,

11

though no Anarcho-Syndicalists were on its staff.

In view of this direct and indirect influence of Anarcho-
Syndicalists, the bourgeois and socialist papers began to voice
alarm: the newspapers Dien (bourgeois), Nov ay a Zhizn (socialist),
Izvestia Petrogradskogo Obshtchestva Zavochikovy Fabricantov
(bourgeois), Izvestia Tzentralnogo Ispolnitelnogo Komiteta
(socialist), Rabochaya Gazeta (socialist), etc. The Social-Democrats
issued a special publication ( Rabochaya Mysl) to combat Anarcho-
Syndicalist influence among the organised proletariat.

In vain, however. The Anarcho-Syndicalists were conquering
the masses with the slogan of “Workers’ Control”. Ever greater
masses of workers were swept under Anarcho-Syndicalist influence,
which impelled them to proceed with the seizure of factories. The
influence of the Anarcho-Syndicalist slogan “Workers’ Control”
showed itself in the Manual for the Carrying Out of Workers’
Control of Industry , edited and published by the Central Council
of the Petrograd Factory Committees and which met a sharp rebuff
from the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks at the First All-Russian Trade
Union Convention. (See The First All-Russian Convention of
Trade Unions , Stenographic Report . Also A. Lozovsky (Dridzo)
Workers’ Control .)

The Anarcho-Syndicalists at that time had their group organ-
isations outside the unions and were publishing newspapers and
magazines. In Petrograd Golos Trouda, Kharkov Rabochaya
Mysl, Krasnoyarsk Sibirsky Anarchist, in Moscow a revolutionary
Syndicalist organ Rabochaya Zhizn, etc. The Anarcho-Syndicalists
were represented in numerous Factory Committees and trade
unions, where they were carrying on intensive propaganda. The
great majority of Anarcho-Syndicalists believed that, by working
within the trade unions, they would succeed in imparting to the
latter an Anarcho-Syndicalist direction.

Sweep of movement

Before the First All-Russian Trade Union Convention, the
Anarcho-Syndicalists suceeded in organising on the platform of
the American IWW between 25 and 30 thousand miners of the
Debaltzev district in the Don Basin. The Cossack massacre, which
led to the murder of comrade Koniayev, the organiser of this union,
and the subsequent civil war, destroyed those beginnings. The
same was true of Anarcho-Syndicalist work in the Cheremkhovo
mine, before the Czechoslovak rebellion. In Ekaterinodar and
throughout Novorossiysk province the labour movement was
adopting the Anarcho-Syndicalist platform. This movement
was headed by B. Yelensky, Katia Gorbova and others. The move-

12

ment embraced the entire Chernomorsky province, with the cities
Ekaterinodar and Novorossiysk. The main contingents in this
movement were portworkers and cement workers. In Moscow the
Anarcho-Syndicalists had a dominant influence among the railway
workers, perfumery workers and others. (The movement was
earned on by comrades including Preferansov, N. K. Lebediev,
Kritskaya.) To translate this influence into terms of definite
numbers is difficult. We can only point out that, at the First All-
Russian Trade Union Convention, there was an Anarcho-Syndicalist
faction. It included a few Maximalists and other sympathizers
totalling twenty-five people. And since the basis of representation
was on the average of one delegate per 3,000-3,500 members, one
may say that the number of organised Anarcho-Syndicalist workers
reached 88,000. This figure, however, might safely be increased
two or three times to form an adequate idea of the actual sweep
of the movement.

Factory Committees subordinated

At the First Trade Union Convention, immediately after the
October revolution, the Bolsheviks and Left Social-Revolutionists
were in the majority. It signified the final victory of the trade
unions over the Factory Committees. The Bolsheviks subordinated
the Factory Committees, which were federalist and anarchistic by
nature, to the centralised trade unions. With the help of the
trade unions, the Bolsheviks succeeded in making the Factory
Committees a tool in their policy of domination over the masses.
Having achieved that, the Bolsheviks proceeded to strip the Com-
mittees of all their functions. And by this time, the Factory
Committees fulfilled only one function, the police role imposed on
them by the Bolsheviks.

In 1918, the Bolshevik terror still spared the trade unions. And
thus we saw the development of an Anarcho-Syndicalist movement
in the bakers’ union of Moscow, Kharkov and Kiev (very energetic
work was carried on among the Kiev bakers by A. Baron, who if
not executed by now [1940] is still being kept in prison or exile;
ever since 1920, he was switched back and forth from various
prisons to places of exile), and among the Petrograd postal and
telegraph workers. At the All-Russian Convention of Postal and
Telegraph Workers, the Anarcho-Syndicalists exercised a powerful
influence, more than half the delegates following their lead. (The
principal Anarcho-Syndicalist workers in this union were Milhalev,
Bondarev and others. The extent of Anarcho-Syndicalist influence
in the union can be judged by reading the stenographic report
of the convention held in 1918.) The Petrograd branch of this

13

union marched under the banners of Anarcho-Syndicalism. Its
publication, Izvestia Pochtovo-Telegrafnikh Sluzhashtchikh Petro-
grada was edited by Anarcho-Syndicalists. The same was true of
the Union River Transport Workers of the Volga Basin where, due
to the work of comrade Anosov, the union publication took a
definite Anarcho-Syndicalist stand.

Capture of trade unions

All that, however, was destroyed by the Bolsheviks. The
industrial principle underlying the process of merging unions into
large units became a useful weapon in the Bolshevik struggle against
Anarcho-Syndicalism. In the first place the Bolsheviks began to
consolidate those unions which they deemed unreliable, from the
viewpoint of their own basic drive for domination. The move
was to merge such unions in the general mass and scatter the
leading Anarcho-Syndicalist workers in unions considered “reliable”
from their point of view. Thus went down a number of Anarchist-
minded trade unions; the union of telegraph workers in Petrograd,
of perfumery workers in Moscow, of water transport workers in
Kazan, the organisations of some important railroad junctions of
Moscow and Kursk, where comrades like Kovalevich and Dvum-
jantzev played an important role.

Due to this measure and to intensified centralisation, coupled
with unscrupulous juggling of votes and, in some places, the severe
measures applied by the authorities, the administrative bodies fell
into the hands of Communists. The Second All-Russian Con-
vention of Trade Unions (1919) furnishes an apt example of this
process of capturing the trade unions. At that convention the
number of Anarcho-Syndicalist and sympathetic delegates was only
15. That is, they represented only 52,950, at a moment when the
workers’ sympathies for Anarcho-Syndicalism were noticeably on
the increase, a fact accentuated by a concurrent lowering of the
standing of the Bolsheviks in the eyes of the workers. The standing
rules of the convention deprived the Anarcho-Syndicalists of the
right to have their own speaker on the important questions on the
agenda. At the third convention, in 1920, there were only 10
Anarcho-Syndicalist delegates (including sympathisers) representing
only 35,300 people.

Those conventions fully demonstrated the failure of the tactics
advocated by Golos Trouda, which carried weight with the
Anarcho-Syndicalists of Russia. (The author was on the staff of
Golos Trouda , but this does not deter him from acknowledging the
errors made by the paper.) The lack of purely revolutionary unions
hastened the destruction of the Anarchist and Syndicalist move-

14

ments. Scattered throughout the Bolshevik unions, the Anarcho-
Syndicalist forces could not show any resistance and were flattened
by the iron policy of the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”.

At the beginning of 1920 only one union in Moscow held out
for the Anarcho-Syndicalist line. This was the Bakers’ Union,
whose Anarcho-Syndicalist orientation was due to the work of our
comrade N. I. Pavlov. (The latter, however, recanted his Anarcho-
Syndicalist views under the pressure of the GPU, this being the
price paid by him for his liberty. Pavlov made the statement
disavowing his Anarchist views on release from prison). A con-
tributing factor to the persistence of Anarcho-Syndicalist influence
in the Bakers’ Union was the work of the Maximalists, Niushenkov
and Kamyshev.

At the Second All-Russian Convention, the Bakers’ Union
delegation contained a “Federalist” faction numbering ten to fifteen
people, whose following extended to nearly a third of the union
membership. At that convention, the first attempt was made
(Maximoff, Niushenkov, Pavlov) to organise an underground
revolutionary Federation of Food Workers. This was to be the
first step towards organising a Russian General Confederation of
Labour. The move was to have been a genuine attempt by the
Executive Committee of Russian Anarcho-Syndicalists to carry out
the basic points of its programme. In view of the repressions which
soon began, the committee of the above-mentioned comrades,
elected at the meeting of the faction of the’convention, did not even
get a chance to start its work, as planned at the meeting. This was
the last vivid manifestation of the struggle waged by Anarcho-
Syndicalism within the Communist State-controlled trade union
movement.

Centralisation and terror

The programme of the Russian trade union movement was as
follows : centralisation, compulsory membership, compulsory

discipline imposed by disciplinary courts, the tutelage of the
political party (the Communist Party in this case), militarisation
of labour, compulsory labour service, labour armies, the attachment
of workers to their places of work, nationalisation of production,
individual management (instead of collective administration),
graduated wage scales (36 categories), introduction of sweatshop
system, Taylorism, piecework, bonuses, premium systems, etc.
Workers control and workers’ management were proscribed and
unconditional support of the government was demanded.

The policy and programme of the trade unions was wholly
determined (and still is) by the policies and programme of the

15

“Communist Government”. At present, and this has been true for
a number of years, the unions, or rather their administrative centres,
have nothing in common with the proletarian masses. They only
mirror the policy of the government, fulfilling all its demands at
the expense of the working class.

The Soviet State has kept up its terroristic methods in suppress-
ing all opposition within unions, meting out brutal punishment to
anyone violating government decrees, which are inimical to the
workers. In this respect the unions proved to be one of the many
government repressive agencies, working in close collaboration with
the other punitive organs of the State : the Che-Ka, People’s Courts,
the GPU, etc.

The following is an apt illustration of this terrorist policy towards
workers. Krasny Nabat and Uralsky Rabochy reported the following
cases : for taking an unauthorised three-day leave from his factory,
one of the workers was sentenced to unload 5,000 pouds (80J tons),
during ten days. All that to be done after his regular workday.
Many other workers were sentenced to compulsory prison work for
the same “crime” of absenting themselves during work. This slave-
holding policy flourished, especially in the Ul*al region, during the
administration of Trotsky and Piatakov.

A government inspection of the sanitary and technical conditions
prevailing in the Central Coal District revealed a ghastly picture,
by which even the most frightful capitalist exploitation pales in
comparison. In the name of the “commonwealth”, that is the
benefit of the State, workers had to live miles away from the mines
in ramshackle barracks built of thin boards, and lacking elementary
conveniences, where even doors and windows had fallen into disuse.
In the winter the barracks gave hardly any protection against frosts
and icy winds. There were no toilets, workers being compelled to
use cesspools surrounding the barracks.

Mineworkers were getting half-a-pound of bread a day — on
condition that they fulfilled their daily work norm. Failing that,
they were deprived of this ration. In addition, overtime was
exacted from the workers, who were paid for it with one meal a
day. Workers who did not fulfil their norm were kept in the mine
until they completed their daily task. And this leaves out the
account of the flagrant tyranny and high-handed actions character-
ising the attitude of the administration to the workers. (This data
is taken from the unpublished report of the doctors who were
carrying out this investigation. The report is kept among the
materials of the Department of Safeguarding Labour, at the Labour
Commissariat.)

Such conditions were especially prevalent in the life of the Ural
workers during the administration of Trotsky and Piatakov. At
the Izhevsk plant, for instance, an anarchist worker named
Gordeyev was shot for failing to submit to work discipline (see

16

Golos Rossiyi for the first half of 1922, Berlin). In Ekaterinburg
(now Sverdlovsk) workers of the mint were sentenced to hard prison
labour, their “crime” being “violation of labour discipline”.

What was the Anarcho-Syndicalist programme, as opposed to
that of the government-controlled “communist unions”? Briefly, it
was that the State — even the so-called benevolent State — is the
enemy of the working class. It follows, therefore, that the first
task of the trade unions should be to emancipate themselves from
State captivity, to emphasise the significance of industrial
organisation. In accordance with this premise the Anarcho-
Syndicalists built their programme and tactics in the Russian trade
union movement.

The Author

G REGORI PETROVICH MAXIMOFF was bom on Novem-
ber 10, 1893, in the Russian village of Mitushino, province
of Smolensk. After studying for the priesthood, he realised this
was not his vocation and went to St. Petersburg, where he graduated
as an agronomist at the Agricultural Academy in 1915. He joined
the revolutionary movement while a student, was an active propa-
grandist and, after the 1917 revolution, joined the Red Army.
When the Bolsheviks used the Army for police work and for
disarming the workers, he refused to obey orders and was sentenced
to death. The solidarity of the steelworkers’ union saved his life.

He edited the Anarcho-Syndicalist papers Golos Trouda (Voice
of Labour) and Novy Golos Trouda (New Voice of Labour).
Arrested on March 8, 1921, during the Kronstadt revolt, he was
held with other comrades in the Taganka Prison, Moscow. Four
months later he went on hunger strike for ten and a half days and
ended it only when the intervention of European Syndicalists,
attending a congress of the Red Trade Union International, secured
for him and his comrades the possibility to seek exile abroad.

He went to Berlin, where he edited Rabotchi Put (Labour’s Path),
a paper of the Russian Syndicalists in exile. Three years later he
went to Paris, then to the U.S., where he settled in Chicago. There
he edited Golos Truzhenika (Worker’s Voice) and later Dielo
Trouda-Probuzhdenie (Labour’s Cause— Awakening) until his death
on March 16, 1950. His writings include The Guillotine at Work
(1940), a fully-documented history of 20 years’ Bolshevik terror in
Russia, extracts from which form the present pamphlet; Con-
structive Anarchism (1952) and a comprehensive selection from the
writings of Michael Bakunin, The Political Philosophy of Bakunin
— Scientific Anarchism (1953). The last two were published
posthumously.

Maximoff died while yet in the prime of life, as the result of
heart trouble, and was mourned by all who had the good fortune
to know him. He was not only a lucid thinker, but a man of
stainless character and broad human understanding. And he was
a whole person, in whom clarity of thought and warmth of feeling
were united in the happiest way. He lived as an Anarchist, not
because he felt some sort of duty to do so, imposed from outside,
but because he could not do otherwise, for his innermost being
always caused him to act as he felt and thought.

RUDOLF ROCKER

18

Syndicalist Workers’

Federation

BRITISH SECTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL
WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION

AIMS AND PRINCIPLES

THE SYNDICALIST WORKERS' FEDERATION seeks to
establish a free society which will render impossible the growth
of a privileged class and the exploitation of man by man. The
SWF therefore advocates common ownership and workers'
control of the land, industry and all means of production and
distribution on the basis of voluntary co-peration. In such a
society, the wage system, finance and money shall be abolished
and goods produced and distributed not for profit, but
according to human needs.

THE STATE: The State in all its forms, embodying authority
and privilege, is the enemy of the workers and cannot exist in a
free, classless society. The SWF does not therefore hope to
use the State to acnieve a free society; it does not seek to
obtain seats in the Cabinet or in Parliament. It aims at the
abolition of the State. It actively opposes all war and
militarism.

CLASS STRUGGLE: The i nterests of the working class and
those of the ruling class are directly opposed The SWF is
based on the inevitable day-to-day struggle of the workers
against those who own and control the means of production and
distribution, and will continue that struggle until common
ownership and workers' control are achieved.

DIRECT ACTION: Victory in the fight against class
domination can be achieved only by the direct action and
solidarity of the workers themselves. The SWF rejects all
Parliamentary and similar activity as deflecting the workers from
the class struggle into paths of class collaboration.

ORGANISATION: To achieve a free, classless society the
workers must organise. They must replace the hundreds of
craft and general trade unions by syndicalist industrial unions.
As an immediate step to that end, the SWF aids the formation
of workers' committees in all factories, mines, offices, shipyards,
mills and other places of work and their development into
syndicates, federated nationally. Such syndicates will be under
direct rank-and-file control, with all delegates subject to
immediate recall.

INTERNATIONALISM: The SWF, as a section of the
International Working Men's Association, stands firm for
international working class solidarity.