USSR

Poland 1956 - Vladan V.

A history of the uprising in Poland, 1956 which began at the ZISPO factory in Poznan.

This is an English translation of the original Serbian. Further editing by libcom from the translated version.

Polish Revolt of 1956

A note on the use of the word 'Soviet' - Neil Fernandez

Comments on radicals' use of the word "soviet" and its relationship to workers' councils and the USSR.

A Note on the Use of the Word 'Soviet'

Neil C Fernandez

Hungary '56 - Nick Heath

A history of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, published as a special supplement of Anarchist Worker on the 20th anniversary in 1976

IT IS NOT out of love for nostalgia that we are commemorating the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Hungary '56 was a prime example of the working class itself reaching for power: doubly significant, it took place in one of the mythical 'workers' states'.

1953: The Working Class Uprising In East-Germany, Cajo Brendel

Cajo Brendel's pamphlet on the East German Uprising 1953.

Class struggle Against Bolshevism

Cajo Brendel

(From original Echanges et Mouvement- london pamphlet) Editor's note :

1953: The gulag uprising at Vorkuta

An article, edited from News and Letters, outlining the uprising at the Gulag in Vorkuta in 1953.

Don't Forget Vorkuta: A Soviet Holocaust

June 2003

Introduction

1962: The Novocherkassk Tragedy

Electric train VL60PK, main product of the Novocherkassk NEVZ works in the early 1960s

An account of the workers uprising in Novocherkassk, USSR, which lasted from June 1-3 and ended in a massacre and mass arrests.

The Novocherkassk Tragedy, June 1-3 1962
by Piotr Suda

1921: Kronstadt: Proletarian spin-off of the Russian Revolution - Cajo Brendel

Cajo Brendel's pamphlet on the Kronstadt rebellion

I

1932: The Vichuga uprising

In April 1932 at Vichuga, Ivanovo Industrial Region (IPO), USSR, 16,000 textile workers struck at several factories and temporarily took control of the town until the uprising was crushed by both heavy repression and promises of reform from central Soviet command.

Part of a wave of unrest which hit the USSR in the IPO, Lower Volga region, the Urals, Western Siberia, Ukraine and Belorussia, the strike was one of the most significant of the 1930s, winning reforms nationally as a result of the threat it posed to the Soviet authority.

The Hungarian Revolution: 1956

This is an anonymous account of the events of the near revolution of 1956, containing interesting information from interviews with participants.

Details are included from Columbia University Research Project interviews with participants which are a nice complement to the information in our other Hungary '56 articles.

[11,000 words]

For a short history, we recommend our article The Hungarian Uprising, 1956 on libcom.org/history.

The state and counter-revolution - Negation

A 1972 article by Negation, in the United States debunking the myths of Leninism and the New Left in particular.

They confront the fact that state-capitalism, the state-management of production and society, the rule over society by the class of the state, the bureaucracy, is still almost universally confused with "communism" as Marx defined it, due in part to the conspiracy of silence and distortion which unites the capitalists of both "East" and "West".

Bolshevism and Stalinism - Paul Mattick

Mattick analyses "the superficiality of the ideological differences between Stalinism and Trotskyism" and why "Trotsky's own past and theories", with his role in the construction of the Russian regime, "condemned 'Trotskyism' to remain a mere collecting agency for unsuccessful Bolsheviks".

Article source: The Council Communist Archive - www.kurasje.org

The largest collection of Mattick's work is at the Paul Mattick homepage - http://www.home.no/mattick/

'Bolshevism and Stalinism' was originally published in Politics Vol. 4 - no. 2 - Mar/Apr 1947.

Re-visiting the east ... and popping in at Marx's - Gilles Dauvé

Apart from North Korea and Cuba, no country calls itself socialist any more. So why bother about old debates on the nature of the USSR? Since capitalism rules the world, what else is there to know?! A great deal.

It’s crucial to understand why Russia was capitalist in 1980, or 1930, or 1920, if we wish to understand what capitalism really is, and what can and must be revolutionized in Russia as well as in Britain in the XXIst century.

1921-1953: A chronology of Russian anarchism

A brief timeline of the anarchist movement and anarchist activity in the USSR, and its repression by Soviet authorities following the Russian Revolution.

“But we do not fear you or your hangmen. Soviet 'justice' may kill us, but you will never kill our ideals. We shall die as anarchists and not as bandits.”
- The anarchist Machanovskii at his trial before the Petrograd Revolutionary Tribunal, 13th and 22nd December 1922

1944-1945: Anarchists in the Hungarian Resistance

Hungarian soldiers and members of the Arrow Cross fascist group collect Jewish books for shredding

The anarchists in WWII Hungary who fought in the Resistance to the Nazis and later the Russian occupiers until their suppression by the Communists.

Following the destruction of the Hungarian anarchist movement by the fascist regime of Admiral Horthy, anarchist groups began to re-emerge around the veteran libertarian called Torockoi, who was 80 years old in 1945. The first libertarian action was against occupying German forces by an anarchist student group.

1900-1923: Anarchism in Siberia

A history of anarchism in Siberia, until its demise in the Bolshevik counter-revolution. It had many similarities with the Makhnovist movement.

A Siberian Makhnovschina?

Academics like Paul Avrich, along with militants like Voline, Gorelik and Archinov, have given us only a sketch of anarchism in Siberia. The important role of anarchism there has remained obscured.

1419-today: Czech anarchism

A brief but detailed history of anarchist ideas and the anarchist movement in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bohemia.

1950-today: Corporate and state intervention in the arts

A look at involvement of governments and corporations attempting to push their interests in the world of art and culture since the middle of the last century.

The Cultural Cold War

1966: The Blake prison escape

A short history of the miraculous prison break of Soviet double-agent George Blake from a British jail, organised by two libertarian activists.

In 1966, the most notorious prisoner in Britain was sprung from jail. George Blake was a British double-agent serving 42 years for spying for the Soviet Union. At the time this was the longest jail sentence ever imposed by a British court.

1940-1989: The Cold War

Noam Chomsky explains the nature of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1989.

How the Cold War worked

1953: The East German uprising

A brief history of a rebellion against the Soviet government.

Many people have heard of the uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The 1953 East Germany rebellion was an earlier example of the working class resistance to Bolshevik domination, which saw party bureaucrats and cops strung up and a nationwide network of workers councils springing up spontaneously.