The Russian Anarchists by Paul Avrich Review by: David Footman The Slavonic and East European Review,

Vol. 46, No. 106 (Jan., 1968), p. 254 Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4205962 . Accessed: 15/03/2013 21:20
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254

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contain a valid lesson for our own time. In any case, thc editor deserves thanks for the love which he has devoted to the work of a very remarkable woman. F. L. Carsten London Avrich, Paul. Columbia The Russian Anarchists. Studies of the Russian Institute, Princeton New Press, Princeton, University. University Press, London, 1967. 303 pages. Index. Jersey/Oxford University Plates. Bibliography.

This volume is one of the series of Studies of the Russian Institute, Columbia University. After an opening chapter concerned largely with the the author examines in detail founding fathers (Bakunin and Kropotkin), the doings and writings of the anarchists during and around the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. His story ends with the expulsion of Maksimov, Volin and others in 1922; an epilogue describes what subsequently happened to the survivors, and concludes with a summing up of the movement as a is sketched very briefly?the Kornilov whole. The historical background it may be felt that affair, for instance, takes up only one paragraph?and at times there is over-simplification. But the book is not a history of Russia but an account of the Russian anarchists, and one compiled after careful and prolonged research. There is a wealth of source references throughout and a number of interesting photo? the text, an annotated bibliography will for Scholars be having here made available so full grateful graphs. and so well documented particulars not only of comparatively prominent and Machaysky but also of a host of lesser figures like Bidbey (Romanov) known participants in the movement. He pays generous tribute to Professor Avrich's attitude is sympathetic. the idealism of the idealists. He examines patiently the varying and con? aims and programmes of the flicting (and usually quite impracticable) rival anarchist groups. He is inclined to soft-pedal?though he does not criminal element that came to loom so large in attempt to conceal?the so many of their activities. Indeed it might even be argued that it was, in part, this element of thuggery that made the anarchists so useful to Lenin at a critical moment in his struggle with his enemies. In any case, once these enemies had been defeated and the Bolsheviks were started on their task of building up a new order, there was obviously no place for either thuggery or dissident idealism. That the Soviet regime should sup? It is perhaps surprising that it was was inevitable. press the movement not suppressed earlier. But it is all to the good that we should have this detailed account of the Russian anarchists. They did, at the time of the Bolshevik seizure of power, play a certain part in history. And they do represent a mentality that is Russia. by no means confined to early twentieth-century London David Footman

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