occurred the strengthening of the social revolutionaries, and that at the same time the social democrats exhibited a more radical trend, which culminated in the formation of a distinct radical faction, that of the bolševiki—the members of the left wing of the bolševiki are actually called anarchising socialists. The maximalists severed themselves from the social revolutionaries, and although the maximalists cannot be classified as anarchists, the influence of European anarchism is unquestionably traceable in their views; but both the social revolutionaries and the bolševiki have publicly and repeatedly protested in the strongest terms against anarchistic campaigning methods (individual acts of assassination, expropriation applied to private persons, and the like). Under anarchist influence the so-called Mahaevcy have broken away from the social democracy. Volskii (the pseudonym of a Pole named Machajski), the founder of this trend, offers an agglomeration of syndicalism, anarchism, and Marxism, in conjunction with a fierce polemic against the intellectuals.[1]
In the growth of anarchism since 1901 I discern a manifestation of the radical mood which led in 1905 to the revolution, and which after the counter-revolution impelled to the revival of the revolution. Beyond question the latest Russian revolutionary movement is characterised by an anarchistic mood. After Bakunin, the only notable advocates of anarchism for a time were Kropotkin and Prince Čerkezov. Since 1901 anarchism has assumed a more moderate form.[2]
- ↑ Volskii was at first a Marxist. His book, The Mental Worker, was published in Geneva in 1904. In this he attacks social democracy and the anarchism of Kropotkin as unduly bourgeois.
- ↑ Prince Čerkezov is one of the ablest theorists of Bakuninist "federalistic-communism," and was a supporter of the older Narodnaja Volja and its terrorism. As participator in Karakozov's attempt he was sent to Siberia in 1866, and escaped in 1876. Consult his criticism of Marxism, W. Tscherkesoff, Pages of Socialist History, Doctrines and Acts of the Social Democracy, 1902. In 1903 began the publication of the anarchist periodical "Hlěb i Volja" (bread and freedom, a modification of the old formula Zemlja i Volja, land and freedom); on the whole this paper represented the ideas of Kropotkin. The journal "Beznačalie" (anarchy) which appeared in 1906, was more radical and more individualistic. The periodicals "Novyi Mir" (the new world) and "Burevěstnik" (the stormy petrel, the title is that of a well-known poem by Gor'kii), originating in 1907, were syndicalist. In the same year there came into existence an organisation entitled Russian Federation of Revolutionary Anarchists. The principal items in the program of "Hlěb i Volja" run as follows: anarchism is opposed to government of every kind, and is therefore opposed to attempts to establish a Russian constitution; it consequently rejects, in addition, the organisation of the party in central committees; it
