USSR
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 Fedor Petrovich Machanovski at his trial before the Petrograd Revolutionary Tribunal, 13th and 22nd December 1922
1944-1945: Anarchists in the Hungarian Resistance
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.
1956: The Hungarian Revolution
The history of the Hungarian workers' revolution against the Communist dictatorship. A general strike was declared, and workers' councils sprung up across the country.
In cities the workers armed themselves and fraternised with the troops, but were eventually crushed by Soviet tanks.
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'.
