The aggravation of the political situation in the Russian Empire in 1905, which followed the shooting of a peaceful workers' demonstration on January 9, marching to the imperial palace under the leadership of priest Georgy Gapon, also led to the activation of revolutionary organizations of various ideological views. Social Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists - each of these left-wing political forces defended their own line regarding the ideal of social order.
The history of the social democratic movement during this period, albeit with certain distortions or exaggerations, is described in detail in Soviet historical literature. The history of the anarchists is another matter. The ideological opponents of the Social Democrats - the anarchists - were far less fortunate. In Soviet times, their role in the events of that time was openly hushed up, and in the post-Soviet period they attracted the attention of only a narrow circle of interested historians.
Meanwhile, it was the period from 1905 to 1907. can be called perhaps the most active in the history of the Russian anarchist movement. By the way, the anarchist movement itself has never been united and centralized, which is explained, first of all, by the very philosophy and ideology of anarchism, in which there were many trends - from individualistic to anarcho-communist.
In relation to the methods of action, the anarchists were also divided into "peaceful" or evolutionary, focused on the long-term progress of society or the creation of communitarian settlements "here and now", and revolutionary, which, like the Social Democrats, focused on the mass movement of the proletariat or peasantry and advocated the organization of professional syndicates, anarchist federations and other structures capable of overthrowing the state and the capitalist system. The most radical wing of the revolutionary anarchists, which will be discussed in this article, advocated not so much mass actions as acts of individual armed resistance to the state and capitalists.
Parisian group of beggars
The revolutionary events in Russia caused a revival among the Russian anarchists who lived in exile. It should be noted that there were quite a few of them, especially among students who studied in France. Many of them began to think about whether the traditional program of anarcho-communism in the spirit of P. A. Kropotkin and his associates in the "Bread and Freedom" group is too moderate, whether it is not worth approaching the tactics and strategy of anarchism from more radical positions.
In the spring of 1905, the Parisian group of communist anarchists "Beznachalie" appeared in France, and in April 1905, the first issue of the magazine "Leaf of the Beznachalie" group was published. In the program statement, the beznakhaltsy made the primary conclusion: true anarchism is alien to any doctrinaire and can triumph only as a revolutionary doctrine. By this they transparently hinted that "moderate" anarcho-communism in the spirit of P. A. Kropotkin needs revision and adaptation to modern conditions.
The teachings of the beznakhaltsy were radicalized anarcho-communism, which was supplemented by Bakunin's idea of the revolutionary role of the lumpen proletariat and Makhaev's rejection of the intelligentsia. In order not to stagnate in one place and not slide into the swamp of opportunism, anarchism, according to the authors of the Beznachaltsy Statement, had to put nine principles in its program: class struggle; anarchy; communism; social revolution; "Merciless mass reprisals" (armed uprising); nihilism (overthrowing "bourgeois morality", family, culture); agitation among the "rabble" - the unemployed, tramps, vagabonds; refusal from any interaction with political parties; international solidarity.
King's namesake
The magazine "Leaf of the Beznachalie" group was published by an editorial trio - Stepan Romanov, Mikhail Sushchinsky and Ekaterina Litvin. But the first violin in the group, of course, was played by twenty-nine-year-old Stepan Romanov, known in anarchist circles under the nickname "Bidbey". The photograph that has survived to this day shows a dark-haired, bearded young man with swarthy, clearly Caucasian, facial features. “Small in stature, thin, with dark parchment skin and black on roll-out eyes, he by his temperament was unusually mobile, hot and impetuous. We, in Shlisselburg, have established a reputation for being a witty, and indeed, at times he was very witty, "- recalled Romanov-Bidbei, Joseph Genkin, who met with him in tsarist prisons (Genkin II Anarchists. From the memoirs of a political convict. - Byloe, 1918, No. 3 (31). Page 168.).
The anarchist Bidbey was “lucky” not only with his surname, but also with his place of birth: the emperor's namesake, Stepan Mikhailovich Romanov, was also a fellow countryman of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. The ideologist of the "Beznakhaltsy" was born in 1876 in the small Georgian town of Gori, Tiflis province. His mother was a wealthy landowner. A nobleman by birth, and even the son of wealthy parents, Romanov could expect a comfortable and carefree future for a government official, entrepreneur, or, at worst, an engineer or scientist. However, like many of his peers, he chose to devote himself entirely to revolutionary romance.
After graduating from the land surveying school, Stepan Romanov in 1895 entered the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg. But very quickly the young man got tired of diligent study. He was captured by social and political problems, the student movement, and in 1897 he joined the Social Democrats. The first arrest followed on March 4, 1897 - for participating in the famous student demonstration at the Kazan Cathedral. But this "preventive measure" did not affect the young man at all the way the police officials wanted. He became an even more active opponent of the autocracy, organized student circles in the Mining and Forestry Institutes.
In 1899, Stepan Romanov was arrested for the second time and put in the famous Kresty prison. After two months of administrative imprisonment, the troubled student was sent home for a period of two years. But what was a young revolutionary to do in provincial Gori? Already in the next 1900, Romanov illegally arrived in Donbass, where he conducted social democratic propaganda among the miners. In 1901, the former student returned to St. Petersburg and recovered at the Mining Institute. Of course, not for the sake of study, but for the sake of communicating with young people and creating revolutionary circles. Soon, however, he was expelled from the educational institution.
Having finally decided on the choice of a professional revolutionary as his career path, Stepan Romanov went abroad. He visited Bulgaria, Romania, France. In Paris, Romanov got the opportunity to get acquainted in more detail with the history and theory of various directions of world socialist thought, including anarchism, which was practically unknown at that time within the borders of the Russian Empire. The ideal of a powerless and classless society bewitched the young emigrant. He finally abandoned the social democratic hobbies of his youth and switched to anarcho-communist positions.
In 1903, Romanov settled in Switzerland and joined the group of Russian anarchists-communists operating in Geneva, remaining in its ranks until 1904. At the same time, he took part in the creation of a "socialist, revolutionary technical journal" with an unequivocal appeal "To arms!" (Sa ceorfees) as the title. Together with Romanov, Kropotkin's associate Maria Goldsmith-Korn, the bread-winner GG Dekanozov and the famous specialist in exposing provocateurs, the socialist-revolutionary V. Burtsev, participated in the publication of the magazine "To arms!", Which came out in two issues in Russian and French. Two issues were published, and in the first, in 1903, Paris was designated as the place of publication for the purpose of conspiracy, and in the second, in 1904 - Tsarevokokshaisk. In 1904, Stepan Romanov returned from Geneva to Paris, where he participated in the publication of the newspaper La Georgie (Georgia), led the publishing activities of the Anarchy group.
Kropotkin's followers in Paris did not charm, but rather disappointed Romanov. He was much more radical. Observing the growing social tension in Russia and the radical actions of the first Russian anarchists-communists in Bialystok, Odessa and other cities, Romanov considered the positions of the orthodox Kropotkinites - “Khlebovoltsy” - too moderate.
Romanov's reflections on the radicalization of the anarchist movement resulted in the creation of the Parisian group of communist anarchists "Beznachalie" and the publication of the magazine "Leaf of the Beznachali group" in April 1905. In June-July 1905, double number 2/3 of the magazine came out, and in September 1905 - the last fourth issue. In addition to the appeals of the "beznachaltsy", the magazine published materials on the state of affairs in the Russian Empire and on the actions of anarchist groups on its territory. The journal ceased to exist after the fourth issue - firstly, because of the source of funding, and secondly, because of the departure of Stepan Romanov himself to Russia, which followed in December 1905.
Beginning ideas
The beznakhaltsy tried to present their socio-political and economic program as much as possible for the “rabble”, even in a somewhat primitive form of presentation. The Beznachalie group, which, following Mikhail Bakunin, shared a deep faith in the rich revolutionary creative abilities of the Russian peasantry and the lumpen proletariat, had a rather negative attitude toward the intelligentsia and even toward “well-fed” and “satisfied” skilled workers.
Focusing on work among the poorest peasantry, laborers and longshoremen, day laborers, unemployed and tramps, the beggars accused the more moderate anarchists - "Khlebovoltsy" that they were fixated on the industrial proletariat and "betrayed" the interests of the most disadvantaged and oppressed strata of society, whereas they, and not relatively prosperous and financially well-off specialists, most of all need support and represent the most pliable contingent for revolutionary propaganda.
The beggars abroad and in Russia issued several appeals, which make it possible to imagine the theoretical views of the group on the organization of the struggle against the state and on the organization of an anarchist society after the victory of the social revolution. In their appeals to the peasants and workers, the anarchists of Beznachalia diligently played on the idealization of life in the old, patriarchal Russia, rooted in the common people, filling them with anarchist content. So, in one of the leaflets of the "communal anarchists" (Russian beznakhaltsy) it was said: "There was a time when in Russia there were no landowners, no tsars, no officials, and all people were equal, and the land at that time belonged only to the people, who worked for it and shared it equally among themselves."
Further, in the same leaflet, the reasons for the peasant disasters were revealed, for the explanation of which the rulers referred to the historical story familiar to most of even the darkest peasants about the Tatar-Mongol yoke: “But then the Tatar region attacked Russia, started a tsarevshchyna in Russia, planted landowners all over the land, and she turned free people into slaves. This Tatar spirit is still alive - the tsarist oppression, they still mock us, beat us and imprison us "(Appeal of the communal anarchists" Brothers peasants! "- Anarchists. Documents and materials. Volume 1. 1883-1917 M., 1998. S. 90).
In contrast to the anarchists of the Kropotkin trend, the people without leaders adhered to the "terrorist" course, that is, they not only admitted the possibility of individual and mass terror, but also considered it one of the most important means of fighting the state and capital. The beznakhaltsy defined mass terror as terrorist acts committed at the initiative of the masses and only by their representatives.
They emphasized that mass terror is the only popular method of struggle, while every other terror led by political parties (for example, the Socialist-Revolutionaries) exploits the forces of the people in the mercenary interests of politicians. For anarchist terror, the rulers recommended that the oppressed classes create not centralized organizations, but circles of 5-10 people from the most militant and reliable comrades. Terror was recognized as decisive in promoting revolutionary ideas among the masses.
Along with mass terror, as a preparatory means for a social revolution and a method of propaganda, the beznakhaltsy called the “partial expropriation” of finished goods from warehouses and shops. In order not to starve during strikes, not to endure hardship and hardship, the beggars suggested that the workers seize shops and warehouses, smash the shops and take away bread, meat and clothing from them.
Another indisputable advantage of the leaflets of the beznakhaltsy was that they not only criticized the existing system, but also immediately gave recommendations on what and how to do and outlined the ideal of the social order. Beznakhaltsy advocated an equal division of land between the peasants, the exchange of products between town and country, the seizure of factories and plants. Parliamentary struggles and trade union activities were criticized. The revolution was seen by the rulers as a general capture strike carried out by the squads of workers and peasants.
After the anarchist uprising ended in success, the beznakhaltsy intended to gather the entire population of the city on the square and decide, by common agreement, how many hours men, women and the "weak" (teenagers, the disabled, the elderly) should work to maintain the existence of the commune. Beznakhaltsy declared that in order to meet their needs and the real needs of society, it is enough for every adult to work four hours a day.
Distribution of goods and services without leaders sought to organize according to the communist principle "to each according to his needs." To organize the accounting of manufactured goods, it was supposed to create statistical bureaus, in which the most decent comrades from all factories, workshops and factories would be elected. The results of the daily production counts would be published in a new daily newspaper specially created for this purpose. From this newspaper, as the beggars wrote, everyone could find out where and how much material is stored. Each city would send these statistical newspapers to other cities, so that from there they could subscribe to the goods produced and, in turn, send their products.
Special attention was paid to the railways, along which, as stated in the appeal, it will be possible to move and send goods without any payments and tickets. Railway workers, from switchmen to engineers, will work the same number of hours, receive equally decent living conditions, and thus come to an agreement among themselves.
"Wild Tolstoyan" Divnogorsky
The decision to transfer their activities to the territory of the Russian Empire was made by the rulers at the very beginning of their existence. The first to go to Russia from Paris in June 1905 was Bidbey's closest associate in the Beznachalie group, Nikolai Divnogorsky. He rode by train, on the way scattering leaflets from the windows of the carriage with appeals to the peasants, calling them to rebel against the landowners, to burn down the landowners' estates, fields and barns, and to kill police officers and police officers. So that the agitation did not seem unfounded, the appeals were offered detailed recipes for the manufacture of explosives and recommendations for their use and for committing arson.
Nikolai Valerianovich Divnogorsky (1882-1907) was a person no less interesting and remarkable than the ideologist of the Bidbey-Romanov group. If Romanov was a social democrat before the transition to anarchism, then Divnogorsky sympathized with … the pacifists-Tolstoyans, which is why he liked to introduce himself as the pseudonym Tolstoy-Rostovtsev, with whom he signed his articles and brochures.
Divnogorsky also had a noble origin. He was born in 1882 in Kuznetsk, Saratov province, into the family of a retired collegiate registrar. “The person is mobile and restless, had a spontaneous character, a purely sanguine temperament. He was always running around with many plans and projects … By his soul, he is a sincere fanatic, a sympathetic kind-hearted man, as they say, a shirt-guy, with a very ugly, but very attractive face … Genkin II Anarchists. From the memoirs of a political convict. - Byloe, 1918, No. 3 (31). P. 172).
A fairly spontaneous person in everyday matters, Nikolai Divnogorsky behaved as if he were a modern cinematographer, a follower of Diogenes of Sinop, who lived in a barrel. I. Geskin recalls: passing by the garden of some landowner and being very hungry, he dug up potatoes for himself and quite openly, without hiding from anyone, made a fire to cook it. He was caught red-handed and beaten. The indignant Divnogorskiy set the landowner on fire that very night.
Nikolai Divnogorsky was expelled from the Kamyshinsky real school "for bad behavior" in 1897. He continued his studies at Kharkov University, where he became acquainted with the teachings of Christian anarchism by Leo Tolstoy and became his ardent supporter. Denying state power, calling for a boycott of taxes and conscription, Tolstoyism seduced the student Divnogorsky. He promoted the teachings of Tolstoy among the peasants of the villages of the Kharkov province, through which he wandered, posing as a folk teacher. In the end, in 1900, Divnogorsky finally dropped out of university and went to the Caucasus in the colony of Tolstoy's followers.
However, life in the Caucasian commune rather contributed to his disillusionment with Tolstoyism. In 1901 Divnogorskiy returned to Kamyshin, having firmly learned from Tolstoyism not "non-resistance to evil by violence", but denial of the state and all obligations associated with it, including military service. Hiding from conscription, in 1903 he went abroad and settled in London. Moving among the followers of Tolstoy there, he became acquainted with anarchism and became its supporter and active propagandist.
In January 1904, Divnogorskiy left London for Belgium with a load of anarchist literature, which should have been transported to Russia. By the way, along with the anarchist proclamations, according to old memory, he also carried Tolstoy's brochures. In the city of Ostend, Nikolai Divnogorskiy was arrested by the Belgian authorities after they found a fake passport in the name of V. Vlasov on a young Russian. On February 6, 1904, the Bruges Criminal Court sentenced the detained anarchist to 15 days' arrest, which was commuted to expulsion from the country.
In Paris, Divnogorskiy joined the rulers and went to Russia to create illegal groups. Interestingly, the beznakhaltsy, setting as their goal the creation of groups in Russia, decided not to waste time on trifles and chose the capitals for their propaganda activities - Moscow and St. Petersburg, in which by 1905 the anarchist movement was much less developed than in the western provinces.
Arriving in St. Petersburg, Divnogorsky immediately set about searching for any anarchist or semi-anarchist groups that could operate in the city. However, there were practically no anarchists in the capital at the beginning of 1905. There was only a "ideologically close" group, the Rabochy conspiracy. Divnogorskiy began to cooperate with her, looking for common ground and persuading her activists to the side of Beznachali.
The Rabochy Conspiracy group took the position of "Makhaevism" - the teachings of Jan Vaclav Mahaysky, who had a negative attitude towards the intelligentsia and political parties, in which he saw a means of the intelligentsia for managing the workers. Makhaisky unconditionally attributed the intelligentsia to the exploiting class, since it exists at the expense of the working class, using its knowledge as a tool for exploiting the working people. He warned workers against being carried away by social democracy, emphasizing that the social democratic and socialist parties do not express the class interests of the workers, but the intelligentsia, which disguises itself as defenders of the working people, but in fact simply strives to conquer political and economic domination.
The leaders of the "Makhaevites" of St. Petersburg were two very different people - Sophia Gurari and Rafail Margolin. A revolutionary with experience since the end of the 19th century, Sophia Gurari was exiled back in 1896 for participating in one of the neo-folk groups in Siberia. In the remote Yakut exile, she met another exiled revolutionary - the very same Jan Vatslav Mahaisky, and became a supporter of his theory of "workers' conspiracy". Returning 8 years later to St. Petersburg, Gurari resumed his revolutionary activities and created the Makhaev circle, to which the sixteen-year-old plumber Rafail Margolin joined.
Community anarchists in St. Petersburg
Having become acquainted with Divnogorsky, the Makhaevites were imbued with the ideas of the Beznachalie group and switched to anarchist positions. With the money brought by him, the group set up a small printing house and in September 1905 began to regularly issue leaflets, which were signed by "communal anarchists". The fact that the group preferred to call themselves not communist anarchists, but rather communal anarchists. Leaflets were distributed at meetings of workers and students. From the latter, the St. Petersburg community anarchists managed to recruit a certain number of activists. By October 1905, two brochures were published - "Free Will" with a circulation of two thousand copies, and "Manifesto to the peasants from anarchists-communes" with a circulation of ten thousand copies.
At the same time, when Nikolai Divnogorsky arrived in St. Petersburg, another prominent anarchist - "Beznachalets", twenty-year-old Boris Speransky, with a load of literature went to organize "Beznachali" groups in southern Russia, including Tambov. Like Romanov and Divnogorskiy, Speranskiy was also an undergraduate student who managed to be under police surveillance and lived in exile in Paris. After a two-month stay in Paris, Speransky returned to Russia, where he worked in an illegal position until the appearance of the Tsar's Manifesto on October 17, 1905 on the "granting of freedoms."
In the fall of 1905, Speransky took part in the creation of anarchist groups in Tambov, worked among the peasants of the neighboring villages of the Tambov province, organized a printing house, but was soon again forced to go underground and leave Tambov. Speransky settled in St. Petersburg, where he lived under the name of Vladimir Popov. Speransky's partner in agitation in Tambov was the priest's son Alexander Sokolov, who signed "Kolosov".
In December 1905, Stepan Romanov-Bidbey himself returned to Russia from the Paris emigration. With his arrival, the group of communal anarchists was renamed into the group of communist anarchists "Beznachalie". It numbered 12 people, including several students, one expelled seminarian, one female doctor, and three former high school students. Although the rulers tried to keep in touch with the workers and sailors, they had the greatest influence among the student youth. They were willingly given money, provided apartments for meetings.
However, already in January 1906, a police provocateur who penetrated the ranks of the beznakhaltsy handed over the assets to the police group. The police arrested 13 people, found a printing house, a literature warehouse, small arms, bombs and poisons. Seven of those arrested soon had to be released due to insufficient evidence, but Speransky and Sokolov, detained in the Tambov province, were added to the rest.
The trial of the rulers took place in November 1906 in St. Petersburg. All those arrested in the case of communal anarchists, including the informal leader of the Romanov-Bidbey group, were sentenced to 15 years in prison by the verdict of the Petersburg Military District Court, only two minors, twenty-year-old Boris Speransky and seventeen-year-old Rafail Margolin, were reduced due to their age. up to ten years. Although some active members of the group remained at large, including the eighteen-year-old worker Zoya Ivanova, who worked in printing houses and was twice sentenced to death, a crushing blow was inflicted on the St. Petersburg anarchist communes "beznachetsy". Only two beznakhaltsy managed to slip out of the clutches of the tsarist police.
Former student Vladimir Konstantinovich Ushakov, also a nobleman by birth, but got along well with the St. Petersburg factory workers and known among them under the nickname "Admiral", managed to escape and hid in Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary. However, he soon showed up in Yekaterinoslav, and then in the Crimea. There, during an unsuccessful expropriation in Yalta, Ushakov was captured and sent to the Sevastopol prison. His attempt to escape subsequently failed and the "Admiral" committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a revolver.
Divnogorsky, whom the police managed to arrest during the liquidation of the group, managed to avoid hard labor. Placed in custody in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress, he recalled his experience as a "evader" from military service, feigned insanity and was placed in the hospital of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, from which it was easier to disappear than to escape from the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
On the night of May 17, 1906, a few months before the trial of the Petersburg “beznakhaltsy”, Divnogorskiy escaped from the hospital and, having illegally made his way across the border, emigrated to Switzerland. Having settled in Geneva, Divnogorsky continued active anarchist activities. He tried to create his own group - the Geneva Organization of Communist Anarchists of all factions and the printed publication Voice of the Proletarian. Free tribune of anarchist-communists”, which could become the basis for the unification of all Russian anarchist-communists. But Divnogorsky's attempts to begin the unification process of the Russian anarchist movement abroad were unsuccessful.
Together with some Dubovsky and Danilov, in September 1907, he attempted to rob a bank in Montreux. Having put up armed resistance to the police, the "beggar" was captured and placed in the Lausanne prison. The court sentenced Divnogorskiy to 20 years of hard labor. In his cell, the Russian anarchist died of a heart attack. The American historian P. Evrich expounds, however, a version that Divnogorsky burned to death, pouring kerosene from a lamp on himself in a cell of Lausanne prison (Paul Evrich. Russian Anarchists. 1905-1017. M., 2006. p. 78).
Alexander Sokolov, transferred from St. Petersburg to the Nerchinsk convict prison, was sent to a free command and in 1909 committed suicide by throwing himself into a well. Stepan Romanov, Boris Speransky, Rafail Margolin lived to see the 1917 revolution, were released, but no longer took an active part in political activities.
This is how the history of the group of "beznakhaltsy" - an example of the creation of the most extreme in terms of political and social radicalism, a version of anarcho-communist ideology, ended. Naturally, the utopian ideas expressed by the beznakhaltsy were not viable, and it was because of this that the group members were never able to create an effective organization that could become comparable in scale of activity even with other anarchist groups, not to mention the socialist revolutionaries and social democrats. …
Obviously, the group was not destined to succeed, given the officially proclaimed focus on "tramps" and "rabble". Urban declassed elements can be good at destruction, but they are completely incapable of creative, constructive activity. Struck by all sorts of social vices, they only turn social activity into looting, robbery, violence against the civilian population and, ultimately, rather discredit the very idea of social transformations. However, the fact that former students of noble and bourgeois origin predominated in the ranks of the group, rather indicates that those far from the people of the “bar” did not understand the real nature of the “social bottom”, idealized it, endowed it with qualities that were absent in reality.
On the other hand, the orientation of the rulers towards terrorist methods of struggle and expropriation, in itself, criminalized this trend in anarchism, automatically turning it into a source of danger in the perception of most of the civilians rather than into an attractive movement capable of leading wide sections of the population. Frightening away from themselves, including the same workers and peasants, the rulers by their criminal and terrorist orientation deprived themselves of social support and, accordingly, a distinct political future, the prospects for their activities. Nevertheless, the experience of studying the history of such groups is valuable because it makes it possible to present all the richness of the political palette of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century, including in its radical segment.
